The Hunger Games: Peeta's Story
by EscapeArtist25
Summary: Anyone wonder what was going on in Peeta's head? How did he end up with the Careers? What was he doing when he was lying on the riverbank? What did he and Haymitch discuss in private? I promise, you'll get addicted. Also check out my version of Catching Fire and Mockingjay in Peeta's POV, also my post-Mockingjay fic "Deliverance".
1. The Reaping: Part 1

**Welcome to the 74th Hunger Games: From the point of view of Peeta Mellark:**

I opened my eyes to the smell of freshly baked bread, a luxury most of the people that live here in District 12 don't have. I know how lucky I am, despite having an angry family that is always at odds with each other. My mother, Mera, is abusive. Actually, I don't know if that's really the term to use. She's strict, yes, but…No, there's no excuse to use. She is abusive. When my brothers or I misbehave, or at least if she thinks we are misbehaving, we're beaten. Sometimes just with a belt, sometimes with a hot peel -the wooden thing used to take the bread out of the burner- sometimes even with a metal rod used to break up wood in the fireplace.

She's a nice woman on the outside, always says just what she should in public, always has a courteous smile on her face, a firm handshake, and a professional look about her that is sure to earn her respect in the town. My father, on the other hand, no one knows of. He is simply known as "The Baker". No one in town even calls him by his first name, Lon. He is kind, and patient, and why he and my mother chose each other I'll probably never know. I'm sure that he loves her; he must to put up with the way she acts. She belittles him so much, it drives me crazy; But for some reason it doesn't seem to have any effect on him. My older brother Riley thinks he's scared, and even tells him that to his face. That pisses me off to no end. But I don't think that's what it is, I just think maybe he really doesn't mind it. He's a really easy going guy, always has been.

I live in a neighborhood with other merchants such as the butcher or the dairy owner. Other parts of town include the Town Square, which has a Justice Building where public events are held, like weddings. There's also a small park, and five absolutely huge television screens- I mean these must be _at least_ as tall as I am- placed around the square for Capitol announcements and such. The mayor lives here too. Then there's what is known as The Hob. It's technically a black market, but a lot of our Peacekeepers buy their goods there as well, so as long as everything is running smoothly there they keep their mouths shut about the whole operation.

There is the school district between the Hob and the Town Square. We have a primary and secondary school. Kids start primary at the age of 5, and start secondary at the age of 12, then graduate at 18. By the school district, are the mines. District 12's trade is mining. It's what our district produces for the Capitol. Most of the men over age 18 work in the mines. That's probably where I'll end up. We have the bakery, but it's really run just fine with one person, and my eldest brother Jacob will run it. So Riley and I will probably be in the mines.

The mines are right next to a place called The Seam- it is essentially the poor part of town. All the houses look alike, and to call them houses is actually an overstatement. They are really more like run down shacks. I went inside one once. There's a tiny kitchen next to the living room, no formal dining room. Houses with children had two rooms and one bathroom, houses without had only one room. The floors were made of old, rotting wood, as well as the walls and roof. The house I went into had a leaky roof, though I don't know if they all do or not, I sure hope not- it gets pretty cold, and not to mention rainy, during the winter and spring. Most of my schoolmates live in The Seam. Sadly, the poorest part of town is also the most populated. I try to avoid the Seam whenever possible; seeing the malnourished children upsets me.

Beyond the Seam is the fence. It's electrified twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, it's the Capitol's way of keeping us inside the safety of our districts. There are holes where it looks like people sneak through, and I think I may know who it is that is sneaking. Going into the woods out of District 12 is punishable by death. But I would never tell, for more reasons than one; though I sure as hell wouldn't ever go out there.

I'm really more like my dad, patient, kind, loving. My brother Riley is a lot like my mom, and my older brother Jacob seemed to get the best of my mother and father's traits. He is kind without being a pushover, and he is stern without being mean. That's why he is already being trained how to run the bakery. All I get to do is frost the cakes.

Riley smacks me on the back of the head playfully. "Get up bonehead, reaping's today."

That's right. It's September 1st. Every September 1st the Capitol "reaps" a boy and girl from each district to compete in a twisted game for the entertainment of the Capitol citizens. I rub my eyes and stretch, then stand up and walk into our living room, where a plate of fruit and toast waits for me and my brothers. Jacob is sitting next to my father, drinking coffee and reading a newspaper. They look like clones, as my father is doing the same. My mother is still sleeping. Riley punches me again in the shoulder, then sits next to me and starts inhaling his food. I have no idea how he is not fat, he eats so much and is the laziest person I know. It disgusts me how he treats food like there will always be more when so many people worry daily about not having enough.

At eleven o' clock, Riley and I have to take the previous days unsold loaves of bread down to the hob to sell off. Since it's at a much cheaper price, some of the people in the Seam can afford to buy it. Sometimes, when I'm here alone, I'll give a loaf or two to a hungry family that needs it, but I can't do that when Riley is here, he'll not only tell my mother, but probably tell the Peacekeepers.

By twelve o' clock, people are starting to close up shop, because the mandatory reaping is in the Town Square at two- but my mother has instructed us to close no earlier than twelve-fifteen. And I'm glad, because I see a familiar face heading into the Hob right now. Actually, two of them. Gale and Katniss, Katniss and Gale. They come into the Hob at least once a week to trade freshly hunted game and fish, and some wild berries. They are the ones who sneak outside of the fence. They seem very comfortable with each other, but they never really seemed romantic. Yet, everyone in the Hob talks about their future after they leave. Everyone thinks they are perfect for each other. They probably are, but I wish that weren't true.

Riley smacks the back of my head again. "Time to go, punk."

He balances an empty basket we brought the loaves in on his shoulder, and motions for me to get the other. I do, then we walk back towards the house. When we get home, there are two outfits laid across my bed. One for me and one for Riley. My family isn't wealthy enough to afford suits for us for reaping day, but we are to dress nicely. I am wearing a grey button down shirt with khaki colored pants and black shoes.

Riley is wearing a black, freshly ironed tee shirt, some white dress pants, and black shoes. I use a little bit of water and a comb to make sure my hair looks halfway decent, and wash my face. Unfortunately, no matter how many times I wash my face, the look of apprehension and anxiety won't go away. I've only got my name in the reaping five times, some people my age have theirs in ten times or even twenty, depending on if they sign up for tessarae. Riley has his name in seven times, as he is eighteen years old. The chances of either one of us getting called are slim, as there are close to a thousand eligible males in our district. But someone has to be chosen.

The town square is packed with people, all eligible males are to wait on one side of a thick rope, then there's a middle aisle leading straight up to the stage, where the unfortunate will stand when their names are called. The other side of the aisle, there's another rope, the eligible girls are to wait behind this one. All families of all eligible and possible tributes wait behind us, hoping for the best, but expecting the worst.

I sneak a look back at my family. My father is chewing on his thumbnail, a sign of how nervous he is. My brother Jacob is just standing there next to him, and then Jacob makes eye contact with me, and gives me a hopeful thumbs up, as if to say "May the odds be in your favor."

My mother, on the other hand, is chatting up another woman from the neighborhood we live in, talking about who knows what- but probably gossip. Such as who isn't dressed properly, or whose names are in the reaping the most amount of times, or whose parents aren't keeping their composure. I love my mother, but sometimes I don't understand why she can be so insensitive.

Then, my brother Riley tells me to pay attention. A Capitol announcer by the name of Effie Trinket, according to the profile on the big tv screens, is walking out. Behind the microphone and glass bowls where she'll draw names, are three chairs, made with wood and velvet. One is intended for Effie, one for the mayor, and one for our district's only living Hunger Games victor, whose name is Haymitch Abernathy. He is not in his seat. Everyone knows he is a drunk mess all the time, so he's probably passed out in a gutter somewhere. He doesn't care if the reaping is mandatory. He'll show up when he feels like it.

Effie sits down in her chair next to Mayor Undersee. When two o' clock strikes, Mayor Undersee gets up to the microphone, and begins reading the history of Panem, just like he does every year during the reaping. Rebellion, blah blah blah, Dark Days, blah blah blah. I'm not really paying attention anymore. It's the same story we've all heard a thousand times and really couldn't care less about since our lives may be cut short.

Then, near the end of the mayor's speech, a very drunk, very messy Haymitch staggers onto the stage and tries to hug Effie. Clearly disgusted, she pushes him away and fixes her hair before stepping up to the microphone. Haymitch passes out in his chair. His behavior is on national television, and I know my mother is bitching about it to my dad this very second. "I can't believe he would go up there like that not having bathed or dressed nicely. And he is _drunk._ I would be absolutely ashamed if…" By this time my father normally tunes out.

Effie Trinket walks excitedly over to the microphone. She addresses us her strange, uppity Capitol accent, "Happy Hunger Games," like it's some sort of holiday or something, "May the odds be ever in your favor!"

Then she talks about how happy she is to be here but I really just want the whole day to be over with. I don't care that there is a big feast after the reaping, with friends and family and fun and games. They are all my mother's friends anyway. I know there are two district 12 families grieving while we are celebrating, and it's wrong. Effie then inhales sharply and says, "Ladies First!" I'm crossing my fingers, hoping it isn't a girl I know. It's horrible anyway you look at it, but slightly less horrible than someone I know being up there.

Effie clears her throat, then looks up from the paper, and says "Primrose Everdeen!"

My eyes fall to the floor immediately. Not only do I know this girl, she is only twelve. _Twelve!_ How sick and twisted it is for the Capitol to send a twelve year old to almost certain death for their entertainment! I can't bear to watch the poor girl walk up to the stage, and I can't bear to look at the expression on her older sister's face. But then something happens and I have to look up. Katniss, the sixteen year old girl I see in the Hob, and have had just one encounter with, runs forward towards the stage, and shouts, "Prim! No! I volunteer! I volunteer as tribute!"

The crowd, who was previously muttering under their breaths how unfair it is to send a twelve year old to the arena, goes silent. Everyone except for Effie. She says, "Lovely!"

It's _not_ lovely. "But I believe there is the small manner of introducing the reaping winner and then asking for volunteers, and..."

I stop listening at this point. Until the mayor says it doesn't really matter and if the girl wants to volunteer, just let her. I want to look away, but I can't. Instead, I watch in horror as the girl that I am in love with walks toward the stage, and then climbs the steps, taking her place at Effie's side.


	2. The Reaping: Part 2

To my surprise, my narcissistic brother Riley was the one consoling me as I looked on in horror. He is the only one who knows about my feelings for her. My mother would beat me if she knew, my father would definitely understand, but he wasn't the best at keeping a secret- especially with my mother. And my eldest brother Jacob is pretty much indifferent to everything. That's when he even listens at all.

"Don't worry bro, if any girl from District 12 has a chance at coming out of there alive, it's her", he says, nodding in her direction. He is trying to help, and I love him for it, but it doesn't ease my pain, though he is right. She is the strongest person I know.

I met her when I was five years old. She and I were in the same class in primary school. Before our first day of school, my dad brought me there, and her mother brought her. As Katniss' mother met the teacher, my dad bent down next to me and whispered, "I wanted to marry that woman." He pointed to her mom.

"But, she's from the seam." I said.

"She didn't use to be. She married a coal miner."

"Why on Earth would she do that?" Everyone knew coal miners were the poorest in district 12.

"Because let me tell you son, when he sang, even the birds stopped to listen." I looked at her mother, then made quick eye contact with Katniss, and quickly looked away.

Later on in that day, our class had a music lesson out in the courtyard of the primary school. The teacher asked the class who knew the meadow song and her hand shot straight up in the air. She picked the paper up to sing. I wasn't paying attention. I was horsing around with a friend, but then I heard the most harmonious sound, a sound she undoubtedly got from her father. I wasn't paying attention to the words, only to her voice. Then I noticed that the birds stopped chirping. I remembered the words my father said to me before... "…even the birds stopped to listen." I was mesmerized by her voice, and at that moment I developed my first crush.

When we were eleven, a horrible mine incident took place that killed several mine workers, including her father. The next day at school I immediately went to look for her, but she wasn't there. She wasn't there that entire week. That Friday, I came home from school and ducked in the hallway when I heard my mother mention her family.

"Well, _I_ heard that his wife won't even take care of their daughters. They are only eleven and seven. How sorry is that?" This was the first time I ever heard my father talk back to my mother.

"Oh, shut up Mera. You would be lost too if it happened to you."

My mother, disgusted, told him, "No it wouldn't. I'm not stupid enough to marry a man from the Seam."

My father was angrier than I'd ever seen him, but he'd never lay a hand on my mother, so they just shouted back and forth for awhile. I went into my room, and looked out my window for a long time, staring at the distant smoke that came from the now-obliterated mine. I couldn't help but wonder if the Capitol was to blame. I was also wondering, if Katniss' mother was too upset to take care of them, how were they eating? People from the Seam are already scary skinny as it is. I kept thinking that there must be something I could do, but I didn't know what.

The next week, Katniss and her sister Prim returned to school. Katniss' clothes were already fitting looser, and I wished I could help. Even just by talking to her. I made a point to go to her house after school, regardless of what my brothers would tell my parents. I wanted to talk to her and make sure she was okay. Even if she wasn't, I wanted her to know that someone cared. After my homework, I successfully snuck out of my house and into the Seam, but before I could get to her house, I noticed her heading towards the district fence.

"NO!" I shouted. She must not know the fence is electrified. I shouted at her a few more times, while sprinting in the direction, but she didn't hear me. Then she somehow got on the other side of the fence, just fine. I was in awe. What was she doing? Why would she risk her life to go the other side of the fence? I mean, what is out there?

The curiosity got the best of me and I waited for one hour, then two, then three went by, when I finally saw a silhouette about her height and stature climb under the fence where she'd gone in. She had a bag in her hand that I must not have noticed before. As she got closer, I could see through the top of the bag, that it was various leaves, but mostly pine needles. Since I was already in trouble anyway, I decided to break my after dark curfew and stick around a little longer. From the abandoned store roof I was sitting on, I could see into her family's kitchen window. Katniss' mother was sitting in a chair, staring into nothing with a blank expression on her face, Prim was complaining to her mother that she was hungry, to which she received no response.

Katniss put the pine needles along with some water into a pot on the stove. In ten minutes, she scooped some into three bowls, and forced her mother to eat before she herself ate her bowl of pine stew. It was sad to watch, and I so desperately wanted to bring her bread, but I had to devise a plan first.

That's when I suggested I start selling day old loaves at the Hob. I thought after I'd sold a day's worth, I'd take whatever was remaining to her house. My mother wasn't so sure about the idea, but she said she'd think about it, and that was satisfactory for now.

As the weeks went by, I noticed changes in Katniss. The happy little girl that liked to sing became distant and unreachable. She never volunteered for anything anymore, and no one had heard her sing since the accident. She just sat there, day after day, looking like she had more important things to worry about than the history of Panem. Every day, as soon as the bell rang, she took off.

One day, several weeks after the death of her father, I had my first encounter with her outside of school. It was raining that day, so I ran home to avoid being too soaked. As I was doing my homework, I heard trash cans rumbling outside. It's no big deal, sometimes we'd get kids from the Seam stealing food from our trash cans, and my mother would normally shout obscenities at them, and they'd take off. But this was no ordinary Seam girl. It was her.

My mother immediately started shouting at her to leave, and I watched from my bedroom window. She tripped over what seemed like nothing, and fell onto a tree stump, grasping it and letting her body slide down it, and then lying on the ground. In the rain, I noticed her clothes clinging to her skin, and it was then that I noticed just how skinny she'd become. She was starving. She was weak, she hadn't tripped, she just didn't have any strength. I knew her poor mother couldn't provide, and her dad wasn't here. She'd gather leaves and pine, but that's not enough. I immediately ran downstairs to the bakery, and purposefully dropped two loaves into the fire. When the ends were scorched but the middle was still okay to eat, I told my father that I was going to feed it to the pigs. He barely looked up from his sales report, just waved me off. I walked outside on the ledge of the bakery, still below the apartment, and tossed the loaves in her direction. She noticed them on the ground, then looked up at me, thinking maybe I didn't mean to throw them at her, and that I was just getting rid of them. Then I nodded towards them, and mouthed, "Take them" to her. She didn't say anything, but the look in her eyes when she held the bread in her hands was enough for me. She was grateful.

My mother saw what I'd done. "Stupid boy!" she said, swinging a belt in my direction. "If you feed one, they'll all come rummage through our trash!" She hit me over and over, on my back, face, arms, neck, everywhere. I went to school with a black eye the next day. As a punishment, she let me sell the loaves at the hob, but only if Riley went with me. She said that way she knows I'm watching the Seam kids starve, only selling bread to the people who could buy it. Little did she know, that as the weeks went by, Katniss came to the hob more and more, with more and more game. She'd come with squirrels, fish, berries, even once she drug home a deer, with help from fellow Seam kid Gale. I'd guessed that they began hunting to feed their hungry families. She looked better. Was still _just_ getting by, but if she had enough strength to hunt, then she was eating well enough to keep her and her family alive. That was enough for me to sleep easier at night. Katniss and Gale sometimes bought some bread, and each time I wanted to talk to her, ask how she was, how I could help. But I was too nervous with Gale there, and too afraid of what Riley might tell my mom.

She and Gale seemed to get closer, and I could tell that he thought of her as something more than a friend. She didn't seem to feel that way about him, but she'd been through a lot, and I'm sure romance definitely was never the first thing on her mind. She was the head of the household. She had other priorities. But it still bothered me a little when Hob workers talked about she and Gale's inevitable future. I wished it was she and I they were talking about, but Gale was strong and a good hunter too. So if by chance she did end up with him, that wouldn't be so bad, at least she wouldn't be hungry.

My thoughts are brought back to the present when Effie announces she's drawing the boy's name now. I'm crossing my fingers that it's Gale, for two reasons: One, he is strong and capable, and two, he loves her, and do anything he could to protect her. But my hopefulness is shot to hell when Effie reads the name, "Peeta Mellark".

I don't think about it. I don't allow myself to think about it. I just focus on putting one foot in front of the other. I do that repeatedly until I'm standing on the other side of Effie as she announces to the whole of Panem that the district 12 tributes stand beside her. Katniss is watching me. She remembers me. I can't get much else from her expression other than that. I don't allow myself to look at her. It's too hard.

My eyes drift in her direction, and I want to look into her eyes and tell her somehow, that I'm here for her. That she can talk to me. But it's too late, because Peacekeepers are ushering her into a room where she will say goodbye to her family. And, at the same time, I'm being ushered into mine.

Jacob, Riley, and my mother are in the room, but my father isn't. I don't have time to worry about why. Jacob pats me on the shoulder and then reluctantly hugs me, but says nothing. My mother is sobbing, to my surprise, but then she sees a Peacekeeper in the corner and has to keep up her reputation, so she starts her gossip again. "Well, you know, maybe District 12 will have a winner this year."

I know she isn't talking about me, but that's okay. I'd rather Katniss win, anyway. She has a family to take care of, two guys that love her. And one of them will still be alive after the games. I don't have anything. My family doesn't need me. My friends don't need me. I'm not leaving a girl behind. I'm following her into the arena. If I can keep her alive, I can die peacefully, knowing I served a purpose. I just want to show the Capitol that we aren't just pawns for their entertainment. We have feelings, and we are capable of sorrow, regret, and pain, just as they are. I plan to somehow, some way, before I die, show the entire country that the Hunger Games are wrong.

Riley doesn't say much either, he just sits next to me on the couch. He looks like he is trying to find something to say. I give him a hug. "Riley, it's okay. You don't have to say anything."

He wipes a tear from his eye before it falls, and then my family leaves the room. My father convinces a Peacekeeper to let him in as they leave. He squats down in front of me and puts a hand on my shoulder. "Shitty luck, huh son?"

He pats my back. "Listen, we love you. All of us. And we'll be rooting for you. But don't you worry about Katniss' family. If she…" he struggles to find the words, "…dies, I promise I'll look after her mother and sister, regardless of how many veins your mother bursts."

I stifle a laugh. And then come to the horrifying realization that it may be the last time I laugh. I hug my father and tell him I'll do my best, though I don't mean I'll do my best to survive. I mean I'll do my best to keep her alive. But he doesn't need to know that. Just before peacekeepers push him out the door, he tells me, "You're more than just a pawn in their games. Don't lose sight of yourself."

And those are exactly the words I needed to hear.


	3. The Train

I plead with the Peacekeepers for just one minute. One minute alone, to myself. They aren't bad people, and so they agree, but tell me to hurry up. As soon as the door is shut, I bury my face in my hands, and I don't even try to stop from crying. I don't care if my eyes will be red afterwards. I really don't care about anything anymore, just keeping Katniss alive. I guess the tears are coming from the realization that I just saw my family for the last time, and that my days on this earth are now numbered. There is also something gnawing at me, and I realize that I will have to end someone's life in the arena. I will have to kill, there is no avoiding that. Death, in itself, doesn't cause the steady flow of tears, but combined with the rest.

My minute is up, but it's okay. I have regained my composure. I stand up, and flatten out my wrinkled sleeve that I used to dry my eyes. A peacekeeper takes my right arm, and another one takes the left, while a third leads the way outside, gun in hand. When I get outside, there is a single black car, with very dark windows, so that you can't even see inside. There is the flag of District 12 on one side and the flag of Panem on the other. A peacekeeper opens the door for me and pushes my head inside as if I was going to try to escape.

I'm sitting on the right side of the vehicle. I can't see who is driving, there's a dark window between the front of the car and the back. I look to my left and realize that Katniss is sitting on the left side. She is looking out the window, with no clear expression on her face. She just looks, bored, of all things. She has her elbow rested on the side of the car below the window, and the side of her face is propped up by her left hand. She stirs, and I turn my head back immediately. I don't have anything to say.

District 12's only train station is tiny. It should be. District citizens are not allowed to leave the district, for "safety" reasons. But, some Capitol residents like to tour certain districts, and the train is the only way there, but no one comes to visit District 12. There really isn't much to look at. District 4, fishing, is on the west side of the country and it borders the Pacific Ocean. There are plenty of things to see and do there. District 2 is a huge, luxurious district that is pretty close to the Capitol itself. I heard it boasts the best skiing in the country. District 1 and 3, luxury and technology, are also good sites to see. District 1 is just above District 4, also bordering the ocean. District 3, on the other hand, sits way across the country in a place that used to be known as New York. Basically, the only times District 12's train station sees any use is for The Hunger Games, and that's about it. It's a long, but narrow, wooden shack, and very small. There is a small ticket booth, but for most of the year it is unmanned. It's only opened for the mayor when he has business to take care of in the Capitol, or for the Hunger Games.

The train station isn't nearly big enough to hold the swarm of reporters and photographers that are waiting there to interview us and take our pictures. I can tell Katniss doesn't want to deal with it, and honestly, I don't either. We are escorted out, more peacekeepers are at the station for our security. We decline to comment and try to get out of the way of the camera as much as possible. We already have interviews in the Capitol before the games, I'm sure Panem can wait until then. Fortunately, it's a short walk from where the car parked to the opening of our train.

I've never seen a train like this before. On the outside, it's a long, silver, polished piece of excellent craftsmanship. It looks like a huge silver bullet. It even has automatic doors. There are windows, but they are small. The doors open, and Katniss and I, along with Haymitch and Effie Trinket, are led inside.

The inside of the train is even more magnificent. The red carpet is extremely soft, the silverware is polished gold, and the main room's furniture is made of delicately crafted wood. To the right, is a long hallway, with 5 bedrooms. I get a quick glance inside the first room, it's still nice, but it's pretty small, and has 6 bunks attached to its walls. Immediately I think this is where Katniss and I will sleep, but then they keep going. We get to the middle of the hallway, and to our left, there are two doors, side by side. "These are your rooms. Peeta," Effie says to me, "You're on the left."

Effie opens the door, and I'm amazed. I've never even imagined anything like this. There is a big flat screen television on the right wall, with black leather couches in front of it. Directly in front of me, is the biggest bed I've ever seen. It's got a nicely crafted wooden headboard, pure silk white sheets, and a red velvet blanket. The pillows are the size of my body. I instantly want to run and jump on it, but I resist. Then, I look to my right. There is a frosted glass wall, as wide as my small bedroom back home, spanning across the entire room. Through the open frosted glass door, I see inside. It's a huge bathroom. The shower sits at the left corner, and it's big enough to hold five people in it. I see a big panel of different buttons next to the shower head, and I want to take a closer look, but I'll wait until they leave. To the right corner, is another small room, I'm guessing that's where the toilet is. And in front of me, there's a vanity, with a wooden dresser next to it.

"You like?" Effie asks. "President Snow always makes sure his tributes enjoy the best accommodations."

Well, he should, I think to myself. He's sending us to die for his entertainment. But I don't lie when I say, "I can't wait to sleep in that bed."

Effie grins politely, and tells me. "I'll leave you to get used to it. Supper is in an hour." She shuts the door behind her.

The first thing I do is fling myself up onto that bed. I lie on my back and think about taking a nap, but then get up because I remember the shower buttons. I run to the bathroom, shutting the glass door, and strip off my clothes. Immediately I get in the shower, and the top row of buttons read not only hot or cold, they have temperatures. I press the button that says 95 degrees, and it's the perfect temperature. The water doesn't even come out cold at first. Immediately I'm hosed down with the perfect temperature of water. The buttons underneath it have different water streams. I press one, and the water rains down on me. I hit another button that says "Pulsate", and immediately the water shuts off, then on again, every second. Then I hit one that says "Oscillate." The water spins in circles. The buttons below that dispense soap and shampoo directly out of the shower head, I don't have to do anything. Then I rinse it off and step out. I take a towel off the rack, and read it's tag. "100% Egyptian Cotton" I don't know what Egyptian is, but it feels amazing. Then I look at the clock in the main room, and realize I've only got ten minutes.

After getting dressed, I don't wait for Effie to collect me, I go into the dining car, and there is a nametag on the table with my name, so I sit there. I look around, Katniss will be sitting directly across from me, Effie next to her, Haymitch next to me. That's if he manages to wake his drunk behind up and get out here. I wouldn't be surprised if he didn't show. I remember him telling me at the train station that he couldn't wait to take a nap. Then Effie and Katniss arrive. Effie asks me where Haymitch is, and I tell her, "Last time I saw him, he said he was going to take a nap."

Effie dismisses this when she says, "Well, it has been an exhausting day." I want to tell her that he is not exhausted, just drunk, but I bite my tongue. I don't want to get on this man's bad side.

We have several different dishes brought to us in courses. I've always had enough enough to eat, but I've never tasted food like this before. It was amazing. The smell, the taste, even the look made my mouth water. I didn't waste any time, and neither did Katniss. Effie made some remark about how last year's tributes didn't have any manners, and I knew that it wasn't because they had no manners, it was because they were probably so afraid it would disappear that they scarfed it down as soon as they could. After Effie makes this comment, Katniss immediately throws her napkin to the side, and drops her fork. She immediately starts shoving food in her mouth with her hands, then wipes her face on the tablecloth. I want to laugh so badly, but I force myself to keep quiet. However, the look on Effie's face was hysterical.

Effie takes us into another room that I hadn't noticed before. It's larger than our bedrooms, with the same couches, and a bigger tv. We sit down, and we are told that we'll be watching the reapings on the tv. Most of the tributes are fairly decent sized, especially the tributes from districts 1 and 2, who train for this their whole lives. Those districts think being a tribute is an honor. I nearly lose my supper when I see district 11's female tribute. She is only twelve, and so tiny. It's sick that she has to participate in these games.

Then, we watch ourselves being reaped on television. I thought the night would never be over. I am anxious to go to sleep and exist in a world where twelve year old children aren't sent to die for entertainment. Effie makes a comment about Haymitch not knowing how to represent our district. "He was drunk," I said, laughing. "He's drunk every year."

Then Katniss speaks to me for the first time ever. "He's drunk every day." Okay, so maybe she just added on to my comment, but that has to count for something. Effie is slightly annoyed by the fact that we are laughing. "Yes, how odd you two find it amusing. You know your mentor is your lifeline to the country in these games."

What she says is true, and I stop laughing, and a worried look comes across my face. He comes in, drunk as hell, and asks if he missed dinner, to which Effie says, "Laugh away!" Before nearly skipping out of the room.

Katniss and I pick up Haymitch's sorry ass and half-lead, half-carry him back to his room. I offer to help him get cleaned up. Katniss accepts the offer, but looks at me like she's trying to figure me out. _She doesn't trust me_. I know she doesn't, but then, I don't really have a reason to be upset about it, since she's never spoken to me and probably hardly remembers who I am.

"So, why did you send the girl away, want some secret pointers?" Haymitch asks me. At least, I think that's what he says, he's so drunk I can barely make out his words.

"Her name is Katniss. And no, I just have a proposition." He leans toward me, already half naked, and it kind of creeps me out. I'm glad I'm the one in here and not her, she'd either be really creeped out or just flat out punch him in the face. I smile at that thought. He needs a fist in his face right now.

"Do tell," he says.

"You can only get one of us out of there alive, and it's going to be her, you understand?" I say, sternly.

"What?" He says, in disbelief. He shakes his head and tries to focus on me. He's actually trying to listen. "Why?"

"I care about her more than you know. And she has a family who needs her. She has more to live for. And I don't want to live in a world where she doesn't exist." Haymitch laughs and puts his hand on my shoulder. "Aw, poor sap is lovestruck!"

Now I really want to punch him. "Can you focus? Listen, I need you to train us, sober. I need you to train her to survive and I need you to train me to protect her. Got it?"

"Whatever you say, kid." He passes out. I help him over to his bed and give up on helping him shower. Screw that. He can shower sober in the morning. "Good night." I say, walking out of his room.

I'm pretty much in a daze after waking up. I don't sleep very well so I wake up very early. I lie awake in my bed reminiscing on my life, and devising different ways of keeping Katniss alive in the games. When I realize it's close to breakfast, my mouth waters and I head to the dining car. Effie is with us, and Haymitch is half-sober. Katniss isn't here yet. "So!" Haymitch announces, "It seems Peeta already knows who is going to win."

"Shutup Haymitch!" I don't trust Effie. She's nice, but she is from the Capitol, and refusing to follow the Capitol's rules in the games-that is, keep _yourself_ alive- is unheard of. I don't want him giving me away. I try to regain my composure and act like everything is fine when Katniss walks in. She looks at the steaming cup of hot chocolate before her, wondering if she should drink it. I've only had hot chocolate once before. It was winter, two years ago, and my family had been invited to the mayor's house for the Reaping day celebration. Hot chocolate was being served. I remember tasting it and thinking that's the definition of luxury.

"They call it hot chocolate," I say, "It's good." I watch her take a small sip, then chug the rest of it down, and I wonder how it doesn't burn her mouth.

I have no idea what happened to Effie. I just noticed she wasn't here. This may be a good time to scold Haymitch for being a drunk bastard. I was just about to say something, but then Katniss beat me to it. She sets down her cup, stares directly at him, and says, "So you're supposed to give us advice?"

"Here's some advice, stay alive." Ugh. What a tool.

"That's very funny," I tell him, wanting to show him that a punch in the face would be funny to me. And before I think about it, my fist is already on its way to his face. I can't stop it, but then he puts his glass of liquor in front of his face, and I smash it to bits. Katniss' jaw drops. I add, "Only not to us."

When I thought I'd made a good point, Haymitch lashed back at me, punching me in the jaw. I fall back on my chair and hit the floor. Then Katniss gets up, and, draws a knife! She plants the knife into the wooden table right between Haymitch's fingers, and the way she _looked_ at him, I mean, if looks could kill… Then she becomes afraid, and sits back. Haymitch sits up straight in his chair and looks at me, then her, then back to me, then back to her.

"Well, what's this? Did I actually get a pair of fighters this year?" I pick up some ice to put to my face, but Haymitch stops me. "No, let it bruise. You'll let the other tributes think you already got into a fight before the arena." Well, look at that, Haymitch is giving me advice.

"That's against the rules." I know, I sound like a nerd when I say it, but I can't take it back.

"If you get caught," he replies. "If you don't get caught, even better." Actually, that's kind of genius. Then he looks at Katniss. "Can you hit anything with that knife besides a table?"

I watched in awe when she launched the knife into the seam of the door. _Damn._ She never ceases to amaze me.

"Stand over here, both of you," Haymitch tells us. She does as he asks, so I follow as well. He looks both of us up and down, circles us, and I'm wondering what the hell he's doing, when he says, "Well, you're not entirely hopeless." _Wow. Thanks._

"Seem fit." He goes on. "All right, I'll make a deal with you. You," he says, looking at me, "Don't interfere with my drinking, and I'll stay sober enough to help you." It wasn't what I wanted, no way. Once he started drinking, he doesn't stop, I don't know how he is going to stay "Sober enough", but I don't want to complain. At least we have _some _help.

"Fine." I say.

Katniss immediately begins asking about the games, like most tributes would; But Haymitch starts with the whole grooming thing. I guess each of us gets a stylist and a prep team when we get there- the looks help get the sponsors. I don't know why I didn't know that before, Capitol people are shallow. Of course they only sponsor lookers. He tells us that we may not like what they do to us, but we're told not to resist. At all. It kind of makes me wonder what in the hell they are going to do. I hope our hair and skin aren't dyed some weird vibrant color like some of the Capitol citizens. I don't care if that's what's "in", I think it looks ridiculous.

I watch Haymitch grab his bottle and head back to his room, and the train goes dark. Katniss walks over to the window, and I just stand there, not really knowing if I should stay or go to my room as well. Then, the darkness passes, and I realize we were going through a tunnel. "Look," She says. I walk over to the window where she is standing. Outside, it's beautiful. Snow capped mountains every where you look, and it's true, they really are majestic enough to take your breath away. The smile on Katniss face turns to a frown, and then so does mine. Because we both realize, that because we are in these mountains, we are very close to the Capitol now. Then, the Capitol slowly comes into view. It's even more powerful looking than the mountains. The Capitol building is huge, and it's colorful streets are lined with fancy houses, parks, stores, and the president's mansion. I can't look away.

When we roll into the train station, there is already a very large crowd gathered to "welcome" us. At least, that's what they think they are doing. Really, we're like their little lab rats. Still, I do my best to give the people what they want. We need sponsors, after all. So I smile, and I wave, though inside, I just want to go home.

Katniss has the most confused expression on her face, and I could tell by her eyes that she is asking me, "Why are you being friendly to them?". I shrug, and tell her, "Who knows? Maybe one of them is rich."

This is a satisfying answer, as she nods her head in agreement. When we finally come to a stop, the people disappear from view. Thankfully. I am really not in the mood for pictures, or questions right now. I'm really not in the mood for people at all; But I know I'll be meeting my stylists soon, and I have to act decent to them. I have to save my energy for that.

Katniss and I are taken into what's called The Remake Center, where we are cleaned up so we look "presentable", was the word Effie used. If her definition of "presentable" is pale, with outrageous colors everywhere, tattooes, and fake hair, I'd rather pass. Still, I am calm, and I let them do what they need to without protest. First, three stylists, I don't catch their names, sit me in a chair, and one cuts my hair; not too much, she just lines me up, and cuts an inch or so off. I have to admit, when I look in the mirror, it's much better looking. My stubble on my face is waxed, and the pain is so excruciating that I can't even begin to imagine the amount of pain Katniss is in right now. At least they leave my legs and arms alone. Then, I have makeup put on. I know how it sounds, but it's not typical makeup, they tell me. "Oh dear lots of men in the Capitol wear makeup. Not to beautify themselves, of course, just to cover blemishes."

She uses something called concealer, and puts it under my eyes, and like magic, the dark circles I've had for awhile disappear. A scar on my chin is nearly impossible to see, and even the fresh bruise I have isn't as noticeable as it was.

After my hair and face are fixed up, I'm told to strip down and get in a tub they have. As soon as I'm in, I feel so relaxed. One of the stylists tells me that I'm soaking in coarse salt from the ocean, which relaxes my muscles and helps get rid of dead skin. My skin is actually much more vibrant when I step out. Then, I'm fitted with my outfit for the opening ceremonies tonight. The head stylist, whose name is Portia, explains to me her idea.

"Your fellow tribute's stylist, Cinna, and I have come up with complimentary outfits for you two. They are all black, but the material reflects light, to resemble a dark coal glistening in sunlight. We've also got a cape for you, that is made to resemble fire. And then, this," she says, handing me a headpiece. "This headpiece and cape, have a special compartment, that when activated, will release synthetic fire. But, to the citizens, you will look like you are on fire."

This could be a good or a bad thing, I think. A triumph or fail. On the one hand, it may help win sponsors. On the other, I don't want to draw too much attention, lest we be killed off quickly for it in the arena. Still, I smile and nod, just like I've been told to by Haymitch. He better be right.

I see Katniss again on the ground floor of the Remake Center. This is where we'll climb onto our chariots, pulled by coal black horses, shocker. This is where the opening ceremony will come from. Portia and Cinna advise us to get on top of the chariot, so we do, and we stand side by side, waiting. When the stylists are out of earshot, Katniss whispers to me, "What do you think? About the fire?"

"I'll rip your cape off if you rip off mine."

"Deal," she says, and she smiles, which makes me smile. Then I realize Haymitch isn't here. "Where is Haymitch? Isn't he supposed to protect us from this kind of thing?"

"Probably drunk somewhere. It's probably advisable not to have him around an open flame." At this point, I'm starting to wonder if Katniss is joking like I thought she was, or if she thinks it's real fire. I was about to open my mouth to ask, but then, I kept quiet, because the opening music began to play.


	4. The Foundation

The very large door opens, and we can see the other chariots going by. We'll go last, as district 12 is the very last one. Katniss is paying very close attention to the way the other tributes are dressed. I'm guessing _she_ feels the way I do, she doesn't want to make _too_ much of a first impression, because that basically puts a sign on your back that says, "Take me out first", to the other tributes.

I am having a hard time paying attention to them, however. She looks so much different now, and it's hard to stop staring, but she gets suspicious every now and then, so I turn my head quickly to pretend I'm watching the chariots. I'm not.

Finally, our turn arrives. Our chariot leaves the solitary comfort of the Remake Center, and begins its twenty minute presentation down to the City Circle. Cinna and Portia light our fire just before the horses begin to walk. "It works," he says.

He shouts something else to us, but she doesn't hear. Honestly, I don't either, but by the way his lips were moving, I think he wanted us to be presented as one, to hold hands.

"I think he wants us to hold hands." She shrugs, and indifferently holds out her hand, which I then take in mine. Instantly, I feel a weird sensation in my hand. I can only explain it like, it felt like electricity was going through the blood in my hands. I just shake it off, thinking that it's probably due to the excitement of the night. When we come into view, the crowd goes silent.

I look up at the televised screen, and I notice that we actually look like we are on fire! The budget for the Hunger Games costumes must be extraordinarily high. I am very impressed with the outfit, and I can tell that Katniss is too. Then, the crowd begins to roar with cheers. I hold my head up high, but I can't compete with Katniss on this one. She smiles, and holds her head high, and actually blows kisses to the audience. Then, someone throws a rose up, which she catches with her spare hand, and then blows a kiss back to the general area it came from.

People begin to chant our names, but mine is drowned out, with so many more people chanting her name. I notice the grip on my hand getting tighter, and I realize that even though she is doing incredibly well for the public, inside, she is just as scared as I am. I don't let go of her hand, even when she tries to pull it away. I'm hoping my grasp will give her comfort, so I lie, and say, "No, don't let go of me. Please, I might fall out of this thing."

Actually, I have incredible balance, and more confidence than I let on, but I didn't want to let go. She bought it, and said, "Okay." But then she seems to question something, and looks in Cinna's direction.

Our chariot then comes to a halt, next to the others, surrounding the circle. The anthem of Panem plays, and then President Snow gives his official welcome address. Even I can tell he's speaking more to the citizens of the Capitol. We are less than dirt to him.

After he speaks, the anthem plays yet again, and all chariots begin to form a single file line, and parade back where we came from, ending in the Training Center. I keep waving, but I keep my eyes on the screens, watching the girl on fire.

When we get to the Training Center and the doors close, our stylists are applauding our performance. They extinguish the flames, even though they are synthetic, and then they climb down and motion for us to follow; But first, I tell Katniss, "Thanks for keeping hold of me, I was getting a little shaky there."

She comforts me, by saying, "It didn't show. I'm sure no one noticed."

Of course they didn't, I wasn't really shaking; But it actually does give me comfort that she says that. I decide to give her a boost of confidence back. I tell her, "I'm sure they didn't notice anything but you. You should wear flames more often. They suit you." I smile at her, completely meaning everything I said, and she smiles back. For a minute, I'm thinking, _My God, maybe she'll actually take that compliment_. Wrong. Her smile turns to a frown as she looks like she is really thinking something over. I can tell by the look in her eyes that she still doesn't trust me. I still don't blame her.

She thinks I'm going to try to win the games. I want to just come clean and tell her that I have no intention of killing her, but Haymitch says that's a very bad idea. She needs to think I'm not on her side. Why? I don't know. But I promised Haymitch I'd listen to him. But I still haven't figured Katniss out; Because even though her smile turned to a frown, and she clearly doesn't trust me, she then stood on her tiptoes and kissed my cheek, before climbing down and flitting off. _Why did she do that?_

I met up with her again in the elevator. She seems impressed with the elevator, and I am too, but neither of us mention it. Our floor is floor 12, because that's our district.

Meanwhile, Effie won't quit talking about the ceremony. She is obviously very impressed with not only our performance, but our outfits. She keeps showering us with compliments, regardless of whether we are listening or not. I have a little more respect for Effie. While at first I thought she was just another heartless Capitol citizen, I now realize that Effie was raised this way. She was taught from an early age that this was standard- this was okay. It doesn't excuse it, but it's not as bad as what President Snow is doing, and I can tell Effie has a heart. I actually feel kind of sorry for her for her ignorance; she's been fed Capitol bullshit all her life.

My room is more luxurious than the one on the train. It looks relatively the same, same materials and all that, but there are even more buttons on the shower, and even some on the bed. There is a remote next to my bed, that will move the upper part up or down, it will heat it to a certain temperature, just like the water from the train. There are plenty more gadgets in the room, but I am tired and don't feel like exploring everything tonight. I want to go to sleep, but my eyes are only shut for about thirty minutes when Effie taps on the door, announcing dinner. I rub my eyes and head towards the door.

There is a balcony just off of our dining room that overlooks the city, and I am immediately drawn to it. Cinna and Portia join me out there, and point out some buildings for me. Then Katniss and Haymitch arrive, and we all sit down. We're offered wine, and I gladly take some. Wine is a delicacy we don't have much at home, but I've always really enjoyed it. Haymitch, of course, accepts a glass of wine, but at least he is actually sober tonight, and to my surprise, Katniss has a glass herself. Then another, then another one after that. Her cheeks are flushed, and she keeps rubbing her eyes as if her eyes are foggy. I know the feeling, I've been drunk a few times before. I want to tell her to slow down, but I feel it isn't any of my business. Still, when she turns her fourth glass down and switches to water, I am relieved, then I do the same.

Her judgement is still somewhat inhibited when a girl that we both recognize walks into the room. She's an Avox. I've heard of them. They are troublemakers who are caught by the Capitol, have their tongues cut out, and then are forced to be servants. I was hoping she wouldn't say anything, but like I said, her judgement was inhibited. Quite loudly, she told the girl she knew her. Effie was immediately startled and dismissed the possibility, but she became more suspicious the more Katniss went on.

So, I have to intervene at this point. The poor girl is getting scared. I quickly come up with something. "Delly Cartwright!" I say, and snap my fingers. Katniss gives me a puzzled look. This Avox looks absolutely nothing like Delly. Yet, Katniss then picks up on what I am doing, and she plays along.

"Of course, that's who I'm thinking of. It must be the hair." She's not the best liar, but Effie looks like she buys it or just doesn't care because her suspicion seems to have subsided completely. To throw off Cinna and Portia now, I say, "Something about the eyes too." Cinna then says, "Oh, well if that's all it is," then begins to describe why our cake is on fire. Katniss is paying close attention, but cakes being on fire isn't anything I particularly care about.

On the way back to our rooms, Haymitch addresses the two of us. "Tomorrow morning is the first training session. Meet me for breakfast and I'll tell you exactly how I want you to play it. Now go get some sleep while the grown-ups talk."

_The two of us act more grown up than you do._ I think to myself. Still, I nod and stay silent. When Haymitch is gone, I walk with Katniss down the hall, and bring up the fake Delly Cartwright. She doesn't say anything. Maybe she's afraid I'll say something? Maybe she thinks I don't already know who the girl is? I'd seen her on television after being arrested. Most people did. I wonder if Katniss knew her from somewhere else? I realize she isn't going to say anything, but I don't want to say good night yet. So, I change the subject.

"Have you been to the roof yet?" I ask her. She shakes her head.

"Cinna showed me. You can practically see the whole city. The wind is a little loud, though."

"Can we just go up?" I'm surprised she actually suggested that.

"Sure, come on."

The view is better when being shared with someone you care about. I lead her to the railing at the edge of the roof. She looks straight down at the street, and we are both silent for awhile. Then, I tell her, "I asked Cinna why they let us up here. Weren't they worried that some of the tributes might decide to jump right off over the side?"

She asks me why.

"You can't." I hold my hand out, and show her my hand being shocked by an invisible force field, and tell her it doesn't let you, it throws you back if you try. She says, sarcastically, "Always worrying about our safety."

It's quiet for awhile again, as she seems to still be taking in the view.

"Do you think they're watching us now?" She asks me. I don't think so, but I don't want her to say anything incriminating, just in case, so I just tell her that I don't know and ask to show her the garden, to which she agrees.

In the garden, I look to her. She kneels down by a plant, pretending to be observing it, and I do the same. Then she tells me quietly how she knows the Avox girl. Halfway through the story, she is shivering. I take off my jacket to put it around her shoulders. My father raised me to give up my jacket for a girl, even if I am cold, because it's the proper thing to do. But even if it weren't customary, I'd rather be cold than see her shiver. I'd have given it to her anyway.

She hesitates, and I have to admit, it's a little painful just how much she doesn't trust me. Eventually, though, she accepts the jacket, and goes on. I don't mention that I know who she is either. It doesn't seem important. Then she told me that the Avox girl and the boy she was with, they were leaving, where to, she didn't know. She stopped talking, and I felt a need to fill the silence.

"I'd leave here." I probably said that a little louder than I should have, but I don't care.

"I'd go home right now, but you have to admit, the food is prime." She has a crooked smile, and I know she definitely agrees. I notice that she is shivering again, and then I notice the goosebumps on my bare skin. "It's getting colder, we should go inside," I tell her.

On the way back in, we get close to her room, and I haven't yet asked what I've been wanting to ask for a very, very long time. Finally, I realize my chance may come and go, so I just come right out with it. "Your friend Gale, he's the one who took your sister away at the reaping?"

I was afraid she may think this was too personal a question, and slam the door in my face, but she stops, turns around, and answers me. "Yes. Do you know him?"

I want to tell her I know him because I watch her with him in the Hob, but apparently she doesn't remember seeing me there, so I just go with, "Not really, I hear the other girls talk about him a lot. I thought he was your cousin or something."

By answering this way, I was hoping to get either, "No, he's my friend," (preferably), or "No, he's my boyfriend," but all I got was, "No, we're not related."

I just nod. I don't want to flat out ask, I know that is overstepping a boundary. "Did he come to say goodbye to you?" I ask her. Now she is trying to read me. She is wondering why I am asking these questions about Gale. I try as hard as I can to be vague. She answers, but carefully.

"Yes. So did your father, he brought me cookies."

_Ah, so that's where he was before he came to say goodbye to me._

"Really? Well he likes you and your sister. I think sometimes he wishes he had a daughter instead of a house full of boys." She looks to be getting uncomfortable, so I try to fix it.

"He knew your mother when they were kids." She relaxes a bit.

"Oh, yes, she grew up in town." Then she gives me my jacket, and I realize we're at the end of our conversation, and though I loved talking to her, I didn't get any answers I'd hoped to get. I take my jacket and tell her good night. "See you in the morning, then." She told me.

"See you," I said, as I walked down the hall.

I think talking to Katniss did me some good. For the first time in a few days, I slept really well. I was actually the last one down to breakfast the next morning, alongside Haymitch. I quickly filled my plate and sat down. I tell her good morning, and she says it back, but she looks frustrated about something. She looks at Haymitch and Cinna, but says nothing else. After Haymitch has a few helpings, he addresses us. "So, let's get down to business. Training. First off, if you like, I'll coach you separately. Decide now." I don't really know. I want to spend as much time getting to know her as I can before the arena, on the other hand, I need to discuss how to protect her in the arena with Haymitch in private. I'm conflicted, so I'm relieved when she makes the decision, not me.

"Why would you coach us separately?"

"Say, if you had a secret skill you might not want the other to know about." She looks at me, and I say, "Well, I don't have any secret skills."

This is true, I don't. "And I already know what yours is, right?" I ask her. "I mean, I've eaten enough of your squirrels."

She quickly turns her attention to Haymitch. "You can coach us together."

I nod. "All right," Haymitch begins, "So give me some idea of what you can do."

Immediately, I say, "I can't do anything. Unless you count baking bread." No one laughed at that joke. "Sorry, I don't."

Haymitch tells me before looking back to Katniss. "I already know you're handy with a knife."

She replies, "Not really, but I can hunt. With a bow and arrow."

"And you're good?" He asks her.

"I'm all right." _Alright?_ There's no way she thinks she is just _alright. _I will fix this.

"She's excellent," I tell him. She doesn't seem to want my help, but too bad. "My father buys her squirrels. He always comments on how the arrows never pierce the body. She hits every one in the eye. It's the same with the rabbits she sells the butcher. She can even bring down deer."

She looks surprised at first, then, that "I don't trust you" look grazes her face. "What are you doing?" She asks me.

I decide to give her the same look back. "What are _you _doing? If he's going to help you, he has to know what you're capable of. Don't underrate yourself."

My comment got under her skin. Uh oh. Here we go. "What about you? I've seen you in the market, you can lift hundred pound bags of flour," she snaps. I kind of like it. I have no clue why.

"Tell him that. That's not nothing."

I decide to keep playing this game. It's fun, so I reply, "Yes, and I'm sure the arena will be full of bags of flour for me to chuck at people. It's not like being able to use a weapon. You know it isn't."

I stare her directly in the eyes. She is determined not to lose though, she tells Haymitch, "He can wrestle. He came in second at our school competition last year, only after his brother."

"What use is that? How many times have you seen someone wrestle someone to death?"

Haymitch tuned out a long time ago.

"There's always hand to hand combat. All you need is to come up with a knife, and you'll at least stand a chance. If I get jumped, I'm dead!" _I won't let you get jumped._

"But you won't, you'll be up in some tree eating raw squirrels and picking off people with arrows. You know what my mother said to me when she came to say bye? As if to cheer me up, she says maybe District 12 will have a winner. Then I realized, she didn't mean me, she meant you!"

Katniss finally doesn't have a comeback, so she just repeats what I said. "Oh, I'm sure she meant you."

"She said, 'she's a survivor, that one.' _She _is."

Okay, so she didn't _actually _say that, but it's true. And then the unexpected happens. She brings up that day five years ago, the day I tossed her the bread.

"But only because someone helped me." And again, I see the same grateful look in her eyes, and I fall silent. She wins. I tell her that she'll have plenty of sponsors to help her, then look at Haymitch and roll my eyes. "She has no idea, the affect she can have," I tell him.

Haymitch smiles at me. I do not look back at Katniss. I want her to figure out exactly what I mean by that. But I don't think she does, because she starts talking about snares.

Haymitch tells me that I really shouldn't underrate my strength, it's helpful. Haymitch tells us to brush up on skills we don't already have in the arena, particularly, survival skills. He also says we aren't to leave each other's side. Then we are told to meet Effie at the elevator at ten, to begin our training.

Katniss is pissed. I don't know what's gotten into her. Maybe she's upset that I didn't let her underrate herself? I don't know. But when she gets to her room she slams her door, Haymitch jumps.

"Are you sure you could handle that?" I smile.

"If given the opportunity, yeah." Haymitch shakes his head and pulls out a flask.

"That's why I'm married to this here liquor." He tells me, tipping the flask up to get every last drop. I laugh.

We do as instructed and meet at the elevator at ten. We are dressed alike, and we see that we are the only ones dressed that way when we enter the training center. We are given a brief introduction. The training coordinator shows us each station, and what we can learn from it. When we are released, I nudge Katniss. "Where would you like to start?"

"Suppose we tie some knots."


	5. The Training

The knot-tying station doesn't have a lot of tributes, so the trainer is pleased to see us, and even teaches us how to form a good trap, which really benefits me, since I've no other way of hunting. I look around the training center. The archery station has several tributes. I watch and try to stifle a laugh when I see the big, burly district 1 and 2 tributes trying to shoot an arrow. None of them hit the targets, some can't even shoot it correctly. I look to Katniss, but she's paying close attention to her trap. Part of me wants her to go over there and show them how it's done; but I stop myself from mentioning it, probably best if they _don't_ know how good she is.

The camouflage station is my personal favorite. I've decorated, and iced, so many cakes in the bakery, that camouflage is second nature to me. I know which colors work together, and I know which are vibrant hues. I even know which colors seem to "pop" more than others, so camouflage is a benefit to me in the arena. If I can't kill, I can sure as hell hide. Katniss seems to be wondering why the trainer enjoys my precision with this so much, and how I know how to do this. "I do the cakes," I tell her. She asks me then, "What cakes?"

"At home, the iced ones for the bakery." Katniss looks annoyed at me, though I don't really know why. "It's lovely, if only you could frost someone to death." Ouch. Though, it's kind of funny. I decide to give a smartass comment back. "Don't be so superior. You can never tell what you'll find in the arena. Say it's actually a giant cake…" I say, until she interrupts me by saying "We should move on." Somehow, the way she is acting makes me love her even more. Maybe it's because she is honest. I've spent my whole life seeing my mother put on a façade. The honesty is intriguing to me. And if you can't trust someone who has always been honest, who can you trust?

Haymitch instructed us to appear mediocre, so for the next three days of training, we avoid weightlifting and archery. However, I do tire of being the weak one that doesn't seem to have a skill, so in hand-to-hand combat, I give it my all, and excel. Katniss does really well with other survival skills-she's been using them so long, it's second nature to her.

For lunch, all tributes eat together. Career tributes eat together, but everyone else, even tributes from the same district, eat alone. Katniss looks like she wishes to be alone, but under Haymitch's orders, we "are to appear as amiable as possible," so she struggles to find a topic. I ease her pain by bringing up the fact that each district has different looking bread. Sometimes, although rarely, we'd have delegates from other districts visit our mayor, and the mayor always asked my dad to prepare some bread from their district to make them feel welcome. District 11 has a crescent moon shaped bread, district 4 a sea green bread, and so on. She seems utterly bored, and who can blame her? Bread is not the most exciting of topics. I can't help but think that she and Gale would have much more to talk about if he were here instead of me. He may even be able to coax a smile out of her, something I try to achieve but never can.

I tell her to talk while I smile pleasantly, to fool the other tributes into thinking we're having a great conversation, which couldn't be farther from the truth. Katniss really doesn't have anything to say to me, and I don't have the courage to tell her the things I want to say. She tells me she was once chased by a bear, and I tell her I find that fascinating. I am not lying, I do find it fascinating; Not that she was chased, but how she dealt with it. I'm sure she had some genius plan she put into action, and may have had help from Gale. I erase the thought of she and Gale and keep smiling. I ask her questions about the event just as I should, and most importantly, I keep smiling.

The second day of training, I suggest we try spear-throwing, as the career tributes seem to be good at it, and it scares me quite a bit, she doesn't argue, and we head over to that station. We are overshadowed by the career tributes, who get better at it with every throw. Speaking of shadows, I notice a small girl from district 11, watching us. "I think we have a shadow." Katniss throws her spear before paying attention to what I said. She isn't too bad actually, much better than I am, just not as strong. Her aim is incredible though. Then she turns her attention to the small girl. She looks as if a memory is replaying in her head, and I tell her, "I think her name is Rue." She looks worried, like I suggested it for a reason. "What can we do about it?" She says. I think she is expecting me to say something to the girl, which bothers me because really I don't mind at all. I wouldn't even mind helping her out, giving her a slightly better chance in the arena than she has now. Anger fills my heart again as I think about the danger the Capitol is putting this tiny girl in. It's unfair. I turn my attention back to Katniss. "Nothing to do, just making conversation." I try to sound as indifferent as possible, even though my mind is filled with hatred for the Capitol. But again, I have to pretend like everything is fine, and put up a fake façade of being the nice guy. It's then that it hits me: Maybe my uncanny ability to pretend everything is as it should be, maybe my ability to be friendly and polite even when I don't want to be, maybe I get that from my mother. I wince, then throw another spear, imagining President Snow's face as the target. The spear hits dead center, and it hits strong enough to almost knock the target to the ground. I am proud of myself for a split second, before realizing that no one was looking. The careers were talking to each other, and Katniss is watching Rue work with a slingshot. It's better that no one saw anyway. I don't need anyone targeting me.

I make some headway with Katniss that night after we exit the elevator on our floor. Haymitch and Effie have just gotten done drilling us about every detail of training, so I tell Katniss, "Someone ought to get Haymitch a drink." There it is-the smile I've been wanting to see for a long time. She stifles a laugh, but then tells me not to pretend everything is fine when there is no people around. I don't really know what to say to make her think I'm not pretending, without revealing that I have no plans of leaving the arena alive. So I just say, "All right, Katniss." It's frustrating, yes, but at least I got the smile and half-laugh.

The third day of training has arrived, and this will be our private session training day. Today, the gamemakers will evaluate each one of us individually, and give us a score, 1 to 12. It determines our sponsors. Citizens normally sponsor tributes with a high score. When I'm called, Katniss tells me, "Remember what Haymitch said about being sure to throw the weights." A smile spreads across my face with my back to her. If she said that, she must care. At least a little bit. She wants me to get a high enough score. Shocked, but pretending to be indifferent, I turn to her before heading in, and say, "Thanks- you, shoot straight." Duh. I'm so good with people and yet that's the best I could come up with. Of course she will shoot straight, it's all she does, she shoots with incredible precision. I think of a million better things to say while I head into the training center to show what I can do.

By now, the gamemakers are so drunk and stuffed that most appear bored. The ones that don't are dozing off. This Is unfair, how can we expect to get a good score with them like that? They probably won't even pay attention and just give the two of us a 5 or something. Still, there isn't anything for me to do except throw some weights. I pick up a 50 pound dumbbell, and toss it the air, it goes pretty high, and I catch it in my other hand. Then, I do a 75 pound one, then a 100. I'm going to try to get to 150, but then they tell me I can leave. I am not surprised, they looked bored when I came in, watching someone toss a dumbbell in the air must have been the most boring thing they've seen all day. I cross my fingers that Katniss does better, and I walk out of the room.

At dinner that night, Haymitch, Effie, Katniss, and I sit around our dining table on our floor. Katniss looks worried, she barely touches her food, which I haven't seen her do the whole time here. She looks straight down, as if not wanting to make eye contact with Haymitch or Effie. I stare until her eyes meet mine, then I raise my eyebrow, wondering what was wrong. She shakes her head, and Haymitch catches it. "Okay, enough small talk, just how bad were you today?" She shoots me a glare as if to say "Thanks asshole." I feel bad, so I quickly try to remedy the situation by telling him that it really doesn't matter what happened, the gamemakers were all drunk and bored and tired, so they weren't paying attention anyway. "I just threw around weights until they told me I could go." She eases her facial expression, and I can tell I helped, at least a little. Then what she says next scares me.

Haymitch calls her sweetheart, and it seems to hit a nerve, so then she says, probably without thinking it through, "I shot an arrow at the gamemakers." I spit out my wine and drop my fork. I knew she was a no-bullshit kind of tribute, but even this surprises me. Shooting at the gamemakers? She could have been killed, or at least given a score of 1. I sincerely hope that isn't the case when we watch the scores on tv tonight. Effie looks frightened, but not for Katniss, she just looks frightened. "You what?" She manages to squeal. She repeats herself, then clarifies that she didn't shot directly at them, just at an apple in their roast pig's mouth. Still, it could have hit them. I shake that last thought out of my head. If she wanted to shoot them, they'd be dead. I just now notice that Cinna and Portia have entered the room. "And what did they say?" Cinna asks her. "Nothing, or I don't know, I walked out after that."

"Without permission?"

"I dismissed myself." I am having trouble swallowing. Haymitch butters a roll as if he hasn't heard anything. "Well, that's that." He tells her it wouldn't make much sense to kill her or her family, and he says they will probably just punish her by making her life hell in the arena. I speak up, "Well they've already promised to do that anyway."

"Very true", says Haymitch, and now I have relaxed a little bit. Haymitch laughs. I haven't really seen him laugh sober. "What were their faces like?" Katniss tells us they were shocked, terrified, and one fell into a bowl of punch. Now I laugh too. Effie is trying not to laugh, but she's the only one. Then she says it serves them right, because they are supposed to be paying attention to us. Katniss smiles while looking at Effie, like Effie is on our side. Maybe she is, I don't know.

Katniss was afraid she'd get a bad score. Then Portia comforted her by saying it wasn't a big deal, some tributes aim for low scores so other tributes don't target them first. This seems to make Katniss feel better, as now she starts eating again. Now, in the sitting room, the tv is on and the national anthem plays. I begin to notice that my palms are sweaty. I tell myself what Portia told Katniss, low scores are helpful sometimes. "Here are our scores!" Says the announcer. "District One: 10, 8" The second score is the female tributes score. "District 2: 10,10. District 3: 5,6. District 4: 4, 8. District 5: 8, 7. District 6: 5, 6. District 7: 5,5. District 8: 10, 9. District 9: 4, 3. District 10: 8, 3. District 11: 8, 7…" That means little Rue got a seven, a part of me wonders if she'll be a harm, but then I shake my head for being stupid. I hope she does do well. If Katniss doesn't win, I hope it's her. It would give the rest of the kids of Panem hope. District 12 is up next. I wipe my sweaty palms against my pants, Katniss is sitting on the couch, her arms wrapped around her knees and her chin resting on top. She doesn't look afraid anymore, she actually looks a little hopeful, maybe because Rue got a seven. "District 12: 8, 11." WHAT? I am ecstatic that we did so well, and Katniss beat all other tributes, even the careers! I didn't do too bad myself, either. Everyone begins congratulating me and Katniss, but mostly Katniss. I give her a nod and a smile, trying my best to show her that I really am proud of her. I don't mean to be the buzz kill, but I am wondering why. "It must be a mistake. How could that happen?" Haymitch answers, "Guess they liked your temper." Well, I like her temper, that's good enough for me.

After the celebratory congratulations are over with, I tell Haymitch that I want to speak with him in private, then I excuse myself to go to bed. Haymitch is knocking on my door five minutes after I get there. I let him in. "What's the matter?"

"It's getting harder and harder for me to pretend."

"Which part?" First of all, I'm pretending to be doing my best to survive in the arena when actually I'm looking out for her. Secondly, I am pretending, to the other tributes, that we are friends. "Katniss may start to suspect something if I keep acting friendly, I'm afraid I'll spill."

"That wouldn't be wise."

"I know. Besides, you have to start training me on what I can do to keep her alive anyway."

"True, alright. I'll coach you separately."

"What do we tell her?"

"That you've asked to be coached separately." I don't want to do that. I don't want her to think that it's because she scored an eleven and I am afraid of her, I don't want her to think I'm not on her side. There isn't any other way though. Haymitch senses my discomfort, and says, "Trust me, the less she trusts you, the more you can help." I nod my head, and Haymitch leaves. I lay my head on my pillow and try to sleep, but I find it difficult. When I dream, its of her.

It's sunny, June 14, the last day of primary school. I leave school, and I follow Katniss into the woods. I follow her through the brush and the trees and the streams of water, trying not to be noticed. Finally, we get to a lake. It's a beautiful lake, with water so clear you can see straight through to the bottom. There is a small cottage to the right of the lake, with smoke rising from the chimney. Katniss goes into the cottage, and I peek in through the window. In front of me, there is a little kitchenette, telling me someone used to live here, or at least make an extended stay. Part of me wonders if this place was here when this place was still known as The United States. Maybe it went untouched by the war. I can't see any other logical explanation, as people from Panem live in the districts. Leaving the districts is punishable by death. To the left, is a small living area, but there isn't any furniture-only a bear skin rug that sits in front of the fireplace. The fireplace is on the left wall. In the middle of the cottage, there's a hallway,with three doors. I'm guessing those are bedrooms and a bathroom. But I don't have much time to look, because Katniss is coming out of the left door, and, Gale is coming out of the right. Gale is shirtless, and Katniss has taken off her shoes and sweater, and it's then I realize they are going for a swim.

I hide in a rosebush, which really should hurt, but it doesn't. The sweet smelling scent of roses fills the air, and I suck in as much air as I can while I'm there. The two of them are standing on a hill that overlooks the lake. There is a tree by them, with a branch that extends out over the lake. Gale gives Katniss a rope, and I wonder what she is doing. She ties the rope to the end of an arrow, and shoots the arrow up to the branch. The rope falls down. Katniss grabs it, and, tells Gale she'll go first. She takes the rope and swings out over the lake, and drops into the water, laughing. The laugh isn't a nervous laugh, or a half-laugh, it's a real, live, innocent laughter. Gale is smiling as he looks down on her, coming up out of the water for air. She yells for him to get in. He does the same, and lands in the water by her. When he comes up for air, they splash each other, and laugh and tell stories that they normally couldn't tell, stories about their parents and the Capitol and the promise that someday they'll leave and run away. Then they hug each other. I don't want to watch anymore, as now, out in the woods, they don't seem like they did in the Hob when they brought game. Now, they seem romantic. Suddenly, as if my vision is on zoom, I can see much closer. Katniss looks at him with a sparkle in her eyes. A way I have never seen her look at him in the district, or at me. Or at anyone. A look that shows complete trust, friendship, and love. She looks in my direction, and makes eye contact with me, then says, "I don't need you, Peeta."

I wake up from the dream, out of breath, and realize I am soaked in sweat. I yank the blanket off of me, and look at the time. It's 6 am. Dinner is at 8, so I decide to shower and get ready. I heat the water to 75 degrees, which is slightly cool, since I've been sweating. As I'm rinsing my air, I close my eyes and bow my head under the stream of water. I start to think about the dream. I've been awake for ten minutes now, so most of what happened I can't remember, but I do remember her hugging Gale, the sparkle, and her telling me that she doesn't need me. I know it's just a dream, but sometimes dreams can tell you what your conscious mind can't. Maybe there is something romantic between them, and they just hide it when they are in the district. But, Gale doesn't hide it. In him, I can tell. In her, I can't see any indication that she feels anything romantic for him. Truth is, I don't know. The only thing I know for sure is that he loves her, and she shares a connection with him that I never will. And maybe she doesn't need me. I'm sure she'd do well in the arena if I died the first day. Still, I don't care what she thinks, or at least my dream's version of her thinks. My plans don't change. The dream does help me though. It helps me focus on my long term goal, and not the friendship I so desperately want. So when we're in the dining room for breakfast and Haymitch tells her that I've asked to be trained separately, I keep a straight face.


	6. The Revelation

**(A/N: In all my stories, I always ask for tips. If you have a good idea for the story, or something you want to see happen, send it to me in either a private message or a review. If I choose to use it, I'll credit you.)**

I was not expecting her to say "Good." The fact that she is hard to read is more frustrating than ever now. I can't tell if she's relieved, happy, sad, hurt, or a mix of all four. Katniss asks what the schedule will be. Tonight we have the interviews. The Capitol will broadcast a very bright, very hyper man named Caesar Flickerman asking each tribute a series of questions. It goes for about three minutes each tribute. Haymitch tells Katniss that she will prepare with Effie. I assume that Katniss is with Effie to work on etiquette, her friendliness isn't exactly at Capitol standards, though, I don't see what they expect.

Once they're gone, Haymitch taps his fingers on the edge of the table, pondering something, and takes a sip of liquor from his flask. "Tomorrow night, you will reveal your feelings for Katniss."

"WHAT?" My first thought: Hell no. I can't even bring myself to do that alone with her under the stars. If I can't do it on the roof of the training center, how can he expect me to do it on national television?

"You will reveal your feelings for Katniss in your interview tomorrow night." I have a million questions, but the first one, is "Why?"

"I want you teamed up with the Careers." I don't see what this has to do anything, so again I ask why. "They'll keep you alive the longest."

"Yeah right. I'm from District 12, they won't take me."

"It is driving them crazy that they cannot figure out why Katniss received an eleven. They will need you to get to her."

"If they know I love her, won't they know I'll be protecting her?"

"You tell them that in exchange for your help, Katniss dies last. Then you tell them you don't want to live without her and they can kill you voluntarily." Haymitch obviously reads the confused look on my face. He sighs in frustration. "One more body will do them good, kill others off quickly. Then, you'll help them get to her, then, you'll let them kill you. How could they go wrong? Of course, this isn't actually what is going to happen. This is what you'll have them think. In actuality, you're with them to lead them off her trail. I've no doubt she can hold her own and survive. She can probably take five tributes at a time, but she can't face all the careers and live."

"What happens when the other tributes are dead and Katniss is next?"

"I haven't figured that out yet. You're a smart kid, Peeta, you'll know."

"I really don't know if I can do that," I tell him. "You'll have to. If you want her to live, this is the best way. They'll think you and she are easy prey because you're in love. If they think she reciprocates your feelings, even better. Not to mention the sponsors you'll get by being star-crossed lovers." I think about this.

"If you don't want her to know it's real, don't. You can easily pass it off as just pretending for sponsors. You're good with that kind of thing." That's true. If I want her to think I just did it for sponsors, I can probably play that off really well. I take a deep breath, and decide that I will have to do it. "Then can I ask one favor?"

"Depends on what it is."

"Can I drink some of that before I go on stage?" I ask him, pointing to his liquor flask. He laughs while nodding his head. For the next hour or so, he tells me about what to do in the arena after I team with the Careers. "They normally delegate different responsibilities to their allies. They'll keep you alive and put you to good use. You'll have food and plenty of water, as they normally stick close to the Cornucopia. No one ever really dares challenge them for it. You will have to kill tributes. I know you don't want to, but you can't appear too nice or sympathetic or they'll suspect you." He goes on about other survival tactics should I end up on my own, and when we hear footsteps down the hall, he pretends to laugh and I join in.

Katniss walks in while we're laughing, and seems annoyed by it. I could tell her session with Effie was unnerving. She looks on edge. She plops down next to Haymitch, who puts his hands up as if to surrender, then she takes a deep breath and tries to calm down. Haymitch looks in my direction and I get the feeling I'm being excused. I get up and try very hard not to acknowledge Katniss as I walk out the door. Effie is waiting for me in the hallway.

Effie really doesn't instruct me on anything I don't already know. "Be amiable, be friendly, act as if you're among friends," and such. She instructs me to stand tall and straight, to walk with my head held high, to speak in an even manner, use "please", "thank you", and other such formalities if needed. I'm trying to pay attention but I am extremely worried about tomorrow night. What will she think? What will my family think? What will the country think? What will _Gale _think? I really don't need repercussions from my actions from Gale. Then, I think there won't be any because I won't be coming home, which eases me a little. It also eases me that Katniss will have someone to turn to when it's all over, assuming she wins. I'm going to do my best to see that she does, even if it means being half-plastered on national television and revealing everything to the entire country.

Morning comes after a dreamless sleep. It's a godsend to not have any dream at all after that last one. I actually feel more rested than I have in a long time, and I hop in the shower and use all the relaxing motions of the water. I feel the tensions melt away, and finally, I feel I am prepared. When it's time to get ready, Portia spends an hour on my hair. I have no idea what she is doing to it, it isn't very long. They use a little bit of makeup to make my face look brighter and healthier, and they dress me in a black suit that resembles burning coal when I move. I am not quite sure how they did it, but this suit is just as remarkable as the last one that I wore in the opening ceremonies.

Haymitch and I are in my room, we've got to head down to the training center in a few minutes. "Here boy," he says handing me his liquor bottle. "I thought you might want the bottle. Has more of a kick, you know." I take a couple of drinks, and wait for my vision to get foggy. "You'll be going last, better take a couple more." Haymitch's advice impairs my ability to walk. I make it to the elevator just fine, and plaster a fake smile across my face, or maybe it isn't fake. I seem to be finding everything funny right now. I wouldn't say I'm drunk, but I feel good. My speech isn't slurred, and I can walk straight if I focus, but I think it will last until my interview is over.

I have to take a second look when Katniss walks into the elevator. She looks more stunning than the last time. She's in a beautiful dress, that sparkles like it's made of jewels. Her eyes are bright, her lips are red, and her cheeks are full of color. Her hair smells incredible, and is done up really well. It is a good thing that Haymitch and Effie are between us, or I might have revealed my feelings now, while my inhibitions are at their lowest. Haymitch seems to be enjoying my anxiety. He rocks back and forth on the way down trying to hide a smile. Effie is completely oblivious to everything. She just stands there like a plastic doll with a permanent, painted on smile. I think it's funny, so I laugh. Katniss turns around and looks at me like she wants to know what my problem is, but I just look down.

When we are seated, I struggle to withhold laughter again. Caesar Flickerman looks absolutely ridiculous. He looks like a child smeared paint across his lips and hair and eyelids. He is way too bright and enthusiastic, it's slightly annoying. I stifle a laugh and Katniss elbows me. "What the hell is your problem?" So she's noticed I am not myself. I realize I have to play this off, so I just tell her I'm thinking about something Riley told me, she rolls her eyes and watches a girl named Glimmer walk out. Glimmer looks beautiful. All of the female tributes look beautiful, but no matter how beautiful they are, they couldn't hold a candle to someone that I'm in love with.

Halfway through the line up, the alcohol is beginning to wear off. I don't feel nauseous, I can focus, and I have stopped laughing at everything. Though, my vision is still a little off, and my mind is still foggy. The bright lights blind me, though no one else seems bothered. I try to listen to the other tributes, especially the careers. I need to know their weaknesses. Since each interview lasts approximately three minutes, Katniss is up before I know it. Everyone so far has had an edge, whether it be elusive or hostile or likeable or sexy. I wonder what Katniss' will be. I think the no bullshit attitude is charming, but the Capitol and Caesar Flickerman may not feel the same way.

She seems nervous at first, but Caesar is good with people, and he puts her at ease by joking with her. Her interview is over soon, and she did really well, she even smiled at the audience like they were friends. She showed off her dress, and this, I could tell, was not a front. She had grown accustomed to Cinna, she seemed to like him. That is good, she does need a friend she can trust. I wish it was me, but to keep her alive, it can't be me. I have to accept that. When my name is called, I rise from my chair and the dizziness returns and I realize that the alcohol didn't wear off as much as I thought it did. Still, I steady myself and focus hard on doing as Effie told me, walking straight with my head high, while focusing still on not toppling over.

My palms start to sweat. Even with the alcohol, this will be hard. "So, Peeta, tell us a little about yourself."

"I'm the son of a Baker in district 12."

"That sounds like it might be pretty exciting. Do you enjoy it?"

"I enjoy frosting the cakes. I've always been into art, and it's a way I can express it." Caesar jokes about how even his stick figure drawings are painful to look at. I laugh with him. "What do you like about the Capitol so far?" I don't have to lie when I say, "The showers. I've never seen so many different options. Tell me, do I still smell like roses?" Caesar laughs and smells me. The audience laughs as well. "Well, not only do you smell nice, but you're a good looking kid, too. You must have a girlfriend back home watching this." He waves to the camera. "Hi, Peeta's girlfriend!" He then looks back at me for reassurance. Here we go. I have to do this. I want to say, "Well, not yet!" But I can't get the words out. I just shake my head. "Handsome lad like you, there must be some special girl. Come on, what's her name?" A part of me wonders if Haymitch and Caesar planned this. Caesar asking these questions, Haymitch telling me to reveal everything. Then I realize that it's just a coincidence. Mentors and Caesar don't talk. I realize everyone's eyes are on me, and it's then I realize that I am taking too long to answer. Haymitch is tapping his fingers on the arm of his chair, a nervous thing I guess. I sigh, and try to bring the words I want to say out. "Well, there is this one girl, I've had a crush on her ever since I can remember." Lies. It's not a crush, it hasn't been for awhile. Why didn't I say I loved her? Was I afraid? I struggle to go on, "But I'm pretty sure she didn't know I was alive until the reaping." Caesar looks sympathetic. I don't want his sympathy. I don't want anyone's sympathy. I rub my sweaty palms on my pants. I want this to be over with. Caesar asks me a question I don't even want to ask myself: "She have another fellow?" _Yes, Gale._ I shake my head to remind myself that the dream was most likely not reality. Katniss doesn't mask emotions like I do. If she felt romance for him, I'd be able to tell. So instead, I just say, "I don't know. But a lot of boys like her." She's admired by a few guys in our class. Some of them are my friends. Caesar, again, feels sympathetic. "So here's what you do. You win, you go home. She can't turn you down then, eh?" I feel a little remorse for Caesar because he really is trying to help me. "I don't think it's going to work out. Winning won't help in my case." The audience, and Caesar are intrigued. "Why ever not?" He asks me. Then, as I'm looking at Haymitch, then to the audience, then back to Caesar, it dawns on me that the alcohol has almost worn off. In that short amount of time, maybe because of the excess sweat. I realize that if I don't answer the question, if I don't do what Haymitch told me to do now, I might not ever do it. I have to make myself, I have to push the words out, I have to. "Because," I try not to stammer, but it's better than not saying anything at all. I look into the television screen. The audience is dead silent, so are the tributes, but Katniss looks sleepy. Maybe she won't hear. No, of course she will. My face is red, like blood red. If I smell like roses, I sure do look like one as well now too. "Because, she came here with me."

Screw Effie, I tilt my head down and stare at the floor. There is no going back. Then I look to Haymitch, who directs me to the screen. The screen is on Katniss. Her jaw is dropped and her eyes wide. Well, if she was sleepy before she isn't now. She doesn't say anything, and she looks around, like it's taking her awhile to put the pieces together. Then, what I said sinks in, and she looks at the floor as if it will give her the answers she wants. "Oh, that is a piece of bad luck," says Caesar. Oh yeah. I forgot we were on national television. Great. I see pain in the eyes of the audience, and in the eyes of Caesar, and in the eyes of one gamemaker. Just one. Now, I'm on autopilot. My eyes are scanning the crowd while my mouth is running. "It's not good." I guess it is a good thing. It sucks for me, but we'll have sponsors. The Capitol citizens will eat this up. They will try to do whatever they can to sponsor us. "Well, I don't think I could blame you, It would be hard not to fall for that young lady. She didn't know?"

"Not until now."  
>Caesar then asks the audience if they should pull her back out here to get a response. In the screen, her face looking down, her head between her arms, elbows resting on the table. I don't know why Caesar teased the audience, but rules say she can't come back out. Caesar wishes me luck, though I don't know what good it will do. There is a slim chance she lives, a certainty that I die, and an impossibility of us being together. I don't want to go back to my seat, but I force myself to. We all stand for the anthem to be played, and both of us avoid eye contact, though occasionally we see each other in the television screen.<p>

The elevator was awkward. I looked one way, she looked another, I would kill to know what she is thinking. I don't have to wait long though. The elevator stops on our floor, and I step out first. I turn around, and then she steps out. I wasn't expecting for her to jump into my arms and kiss me or anything, but I wasn't expecting her to push me into a vase either. I fell, and the broken shards cut up my hands. I need my hands. She was obviously very pissed, though I didn't know why. "How could you? You had no right to go saying those things about me!" What? Were we in the same conversation?

Effie and Haymitch step out of the elevator. Effie gasps and asks me if I fell. Finally, after getting a good look at my hands, a little flame of anger arises in me. "After she shoved me". Haymitch turns to Katniss and says, "Shoved him?"

"This was your idea wasn't it? Turning me into a fool in front of the entire country!"

"It was my idea, he just helped me with it." I don't know why I said it was my idea, but Haymitch looks pleased that I did. "yes, Haymitch is very helpful, to you!" She says. Oh, what little she knows. The two of us are trying to keep her alive, and she thinks we are against her. Haymitch tells her I helped her. "He made me look weak!"

"He made you look desireable! And let's face it, you could use all the help you could get in that department. You were about as romantic as dirt until he said he wanted you. Now they all do. You're all they're talking about. The star-crossed lovers from district 12." I can tell Haymitch has my back, maybe because I took the fall for the idea before. "But we're not star-crossed lovers!" She says. This shouldn't bother me, but it does. "Who cares," Haymitch tells her, "It's all a big show! It's how you're perceived. The most I could say about you after your interview was that you were nice enough, although that in itself was a small miracle. Now I can say you're a heartbreaker. Oh, oh, oh, how the boys back home fall longingly at your feet. Which do you think will get you more sponsors?" Haymitch decided to go ahead and play it off like it was fake. Fine by me, I wasn't ready to tell her yet anyway. And I haven't given him enough credit, either. He makes an excellent point. Katniss knows what he said is true. She knows, or thinks, that I am "pretending" to help her.

"I should have been told, so I didn't look so stupid." Portia stepped in and told her if she'd known, it wouldn't have been real. I don't understand how she can be so pissed at a perfectly ingenious plan, then it hits me: Gale. "She's just worried about her boyfriend." As soon as I said it, I regretted it. Great. I've added a gallon of kerosene to the flame. "I don't have a boyfriend."

"Whatever." I am tired of arguing. I want to go home, I want to wake up and realize that this was all a bad dream. "But I bet he's smart enough to know a bluff when he sees it, besides, _you_ didn't say you loved _me,_ so what does it matter?" Now, she definitely thinks it was fake. I'm partially relieved. They tell her that she looked, at least on camera, that she might be harboring feelings for me too, lining up sponsors. She tells me that she is sorry she shoved me. As she makes eye contact with me, the tiny flame of anger inside me was completely extinguished.  
>"Doesn't matter. Although it was completely illegal." Finally, I get a smile out of her, by myself.<p>

We eat dinner, then watch the recaps on television. The awkwardness returns while we're watching it, but subsides when it's over. Effie does her best to wish us well, and it looks like she even tries to hold back a tear or two. I ask Haymitch, "Any final words of advice?" To which he says, "Stay alive."

I am unable to sleep. I hate to admit it, but I am scared. I'd never had to stare death in the face before. I hope desperately that I am able to sacrifice myself when the time comes, but I'm afraid I won't be able to. Instead, I get out of bed, and wander down to the dining room. I noticed the last few nights, that the careers gathered here after lights out to discuss strategy. I open the door, and Clove stops talking. They all stare at me. "Loverboy!" Cato says. He pats the seat next to him. "Come join us." My instincts tell me he is acting amiable but will try to threaten me. Whatever. Just like Haymitch said, they need me more than I need them. I do as he says, I cut right down to business. "I want to team up with you guys."

They look surprised, to say the least. Cato looks at me and asks, "Why?"

"I'd like to make a deal. I'm sure you were all paying attention to what I said in the interview." Marvel stifles a laugh. "Yeah. Sucks for you." I brush that off. Cato looks intrigued. He seems to be their leader anyway. "I know you want Katniss because she got an 11."

"True. So what?" Glimmer asks. "You don't know how she got it, but I do. I know her weakness. You won't be able to kill her let alone find her without me."

"You wouldn't kill the girl you love," Clove interrupts. "No, I wouldn't. Unless I too wanted to die. Look, the more people you have on your side, the better _your_ chances. I will help you eliminate as many tributes as you can, and if you all, Katniss, and I are the only ones left, I'll lead you to her." I can tell I'm going to have to elaborate more. "Bottom line, I help you, as long as you save Katniss for last. Then I'll let you kill me. No problem, the two of gone, easy. I don't want to live without her, and I don't think either of us has a chance against you guys." They think it over. Clove says, "Well, I don't see where we could go wrong accepting his offer," she tells Cato. Now, it seems that Cato and Clove, both tributes from district 2, are equally in charge. Cato looks at Marvel and Glimmer, both nod. "Okay, what can you do?"

"I can lift pretty much anything." A light seems to go off in Cato's head. "Really? Perfect. When the time comes, go directly to the cornucopia, and start taking supplies, and carrying them out of there. Stack them all up, and then this kid from District 3 will guard them. We'll have your back. You just focus on supplies. Got it?"

"Yes." And that was that.


	7. The Launch

Discussing my impending death with the Careers made it more real than it had been before. Now, I'm ducked In a hallway, outside the cafeteria, leaning my head against the wall. Until now, I hadn't had a chance to think it through this much. It doesn't change my plans, but it does make me regret not living my life to the fullest. I should have talked to Katniss when I had the chance, back in District 12. I should have tried to repair my relationship with my mother, even if I'd fail. I should have enjoyed my life more instead of coasting through it. All of a sudden my chest is tight, and I'm dizzy. The confinement of the building is getting to me, and I decide I want to go up to the roof.

The air is not as chilly as it was the other night. It has a kind of sweet essence to it, I don't know if maybe it's because this is the last night I'll be able to take in and enjoy. The next few nights, I'll be fighting for my life, then when I've done all I can, I'll take my last breath. Down below, there is music blaring and Capitol citizens eating, drinking, and dancing. I still don't understand how they think of all this as some sort of holiday. It surely isn't for us. I hear footsteps behind me and I immediately know who it is, but I don't say anything. If she wants to talk, she will. Though I do expect her to try to sneak back to her room. I hear more footsteps, and I figure she is leaving, but instead, she speaks.

"You should be getting some sleep." I should. I decide to make a snide comment about the party down below. "I didn't want to miss the party. It's for us, after all."

"Are they in costumes?"

"Who could tell? With all the crazy clothes they wear here. Couldn't sleep either?"

"Couldn't turn my mind off."

"Thinking about your family?"

"No. All I can do is wonder about tomorrow. Which is pointless, of course." She notices the way my arms are folded, careful not to bring pain to my injured hands. "I really am sorry about your hands."

"It doesn't matter, Katniss, I've never been a contender in these Games anyway." She automatically assumes I just gave up from the start, but what I really meant was I just never planned to live. I have other plans. "That's no way to be thinking."

"Why not? It's true. My best hope is not to disgrace myself, and…" I think of telling her, "_and protecting you..."_ but I remember that I can't do that. So instead, I say, "I don't know how to say it exactly. Only… I want to die as myself. Does that make any sense?" I sure hope it does to her, because it doesn't to me. She shakes her head and I have to come with something quick. Then I remember my dad telling me, "You're not just a pawn in their games." It reminded me that I must go out showing Panem why these games are wrong. "I don't want them to change me in there. Turn in to some kind of monster that I'm not."

"Do you mean you won't kill anyone?"

"When the time comes, I'm sure I'll kill just like everyone else. I can't go down without a fight. Only I keep wishing I could think of a way to… to show the Capitol they don't own me. That I'm more than just a piece in their games."

"But you're not. None of us are. That's how the games work."

"Okay, but within that framework, there's still you, there's still me. Don't you see?"  
>"A little. Only…no offense, but who cares, Peeta?"Okay, so Katniss is smart. That I know for sure, but when it comes to me, she is dense. It's obvious how I feel, but no matter how I act or what I say, she still doesn't notice.<p>

"I do. I mean, what else am I allowed to care about at this point?" I look deep into her eyes and try to muster up a little anger, to show her I'm serious. She steps away from me. "Care about what Haymitch said. Stay Alive." This bothers me and soothes me at the same time. It's frustrating to see how she really doesn't get it. Then, it's soothing to know she must care about me, at least a little bit, to tell me to stay alive even though she knows only one of us leaves the arena. I don't mean to say it, but I say, "Okay, thanks for the tip, sweetheart." It brings a smile to my face knowing that she is going to be slightly offended by that name. I have to admit it is a little fun to mess with her. Her reply is harsh. "Look, if you want to spend the last hours of your life planning some noble death in the arena, that's your choice. I want to spend mine in District 12." _Oh, don't worry, you will. I'll do my best to be sure of that._ "Wouldn't surprise me if you do. Give my mother my best when you make it back, will you?" She gets up to leave, and tells me, "Count on it."

After she leaves, I don't hold back my frustration. How badly I wanted to tell her that I wasn't lying about what I said in the interview. I wanted to tell her that her survival meant more to me than my own. I had the perfect opportunity, too. Up here all alone, under the stars, the sweet smelling air… Still, I couldn't, not if I wanted to keep her alive. I picked up a rock and threw it over the edge of the roof, but then it bounced off the forcefield and lunged back at me. I ducked. I am a prisoner.

In the morning, I'm looking forward to seeing her one more time at breakfast, but it doesn't happen. I'm woken by Portia knocking on my door. "Let's go." We go up to the roof, and there is a hovercraft there. I'm last to board, she tells me. All tributes ride in the same hovercraft to the arena. A woman places a tracker chip inside my arm, making a face when she sees the massive cut on my hand under the bandage. The ladder ascends, and then I'm in a large room with seats on the sides, and a small buffet in the middle for us all to eat. I sit in my assigned seat, across from Katniss, but she doesn't make eye contact with me, so I assume she has nothing to say. After we eat, we all go to our seats on the walls of the hovercraft. Dawn is coming over the horizon, and I realize this is the last time I will see the Dawn.

Time flies in the hovercraft, and soon, we are at the launch rooms. I go into mine and the only one to follow me in is Portia. There is a round metal disc in the center, which is what I will stand on to be brought into the arena. I'm told to go shower, and do as I'm told. This is the last time I'll be in a hot shower, so I take my time. I desperately want to go back to three days prior and take advantage of the shower in my room with all the buttons. But if I'm wishing, I may as well wish for the games to be cancelled and the tributes sent home, but that won't happen. When I come out, the clothes are already there, waiting for me. I dress in the outfit. It's a brown and green outfit, which is good, you know, for camouflage. Then there is a thin black jacket that's made to reflect body heat. At least the Capitol didn't give us all neon colored light clothes.

Portia sits next to me on the couch while we wait for launch. My head is in my hands, and Portia's hand is on my back, moving in a circular motion. She reminds me of my brother Riley, so desperately wanting to comfort me but having no words. I sit straight up and reach out to hug Portia. She returns the hug, and I think I see a gleam in her eye, signaling emotion. "How many tributes have you had?"

"You're the first." I want to ask her if she's sad to see me go, but it would be pointless. Neither answer would help me feel better. We are called. I stand in the middle of the disc and look at Portia. She has a hand over her mouth, and one over her heart, and my unasked question was answered. I wonder how she is going to deal with this same situation for years to come. Maybe, after a few years of tributes, she'll become immune to the pain, then maybe start to enjoy it, like the rest of the stylists seem to. My disc begins to rise, and soon, I'm standing in the middle of a barren desert.

It's not too big, maybe a square mile. Then, to my left, there's a tall forest, and I know immediately that that is where Katniss will dart to. To my right, there's a steep incline, and I can't really see what's behind it. In front of the forest is a small lake, and to my northeast is the Cornucopia. I was instructed to carry as many supplies out of the Cornucopia to the nearest water source as soon as possible. I take a quick glance over at the thing: There are plenty of supplies inside, and just a few things lining the outside. Then, I notice a small, silver, bow and quiver with arrows. I immediately look in Katniss' direction. She is eyeing it, I knew it. Although my deal with the careers will keep her safe from them for awhile, the other tributes may try to kill her if she attempts to grab a weapon. She received an 11 from the gamemakers, and though the tributes don't know how, if they see her reach for the bow, they'll know she is a prime archer. I shake my head as soon as I catch eye contact with her. Then I use my head and nod to the forest, trying desperately to tell her that's where she needs to go, right away. She looks to the forest, then to me, then to the Cornucopia, and she is weighing her options; but she doesn't have much time. The gong goes off, and tributes begin scrambling towards the cornucopia.

As I'm running towards the opening of it, I see Katniss running for the bow and arrows. But she got off to a slow start, maybe because she wasn't sure what to do. She realizes she won't have enough time to reach the bow and arrows without someone trying to kill her, so instead she grabs a bright orange backpack and takes off to the forest. I desperately hope she knows how to camouflage that. It practically screams "I'm over here!". I reach the cornucopia and grab a big box that is labeled "Dried food", and carry it near the lake. Cato has got a boy from district 3, guarding the lake and what I put down as supplies. I run back and see Clove throwing knives at Katniss, and I'm infuriated. This wasn't part of the deal! I'm about to run towards her when I see Cato grab her arms, preventing her from running towards Katniss to try again, since the only thing she managed to hit the first time was the backpack. I don't have time to hear them arguing, now that Katniss is safe, I focus only on my job to collect supplies.

During my runs to the Cornucopia and back, I'm only targeted twice, most tributes are near the cornucopia. But, a boy from District 4, I think, tries to stab me with a knife he picked up, and I deflect it with the box I'm holding. The knife sticks in the box, and I pull it out and hold it up to kill him. Then I see he really is just a boy, no more than thirteen. He's also rather short and when I see the terror in his eyes, I can't bring myself to kill him. I nod in the direction of the steep incline and he runs toward it, only to have his head bashed in by a tall guy from district 11. Then he hits the ground, dead. Then, the same one makes a run for me. I know I can't outfight this guy. I try though. I take the knife and try to stab him in his arm with it, but he bends it back and it grazes mine. Not too deep, but deep enough for blood to flow pretty easily. Then, he tries to knock me out. He kicks my shin, and then punches me twice in the face, which I fall down from. I try to get up, but I see he is taking off now. The other careers are running towards me, they scared him off. The girl from 4 helps me up. "Are you okay?" She asks me. Before I can answer, the much less empathic Cato asks, "Can you still do your job?" I just nod.

I do my best not to look at the others dying, just focus on doing my job. Finally, most tributes have either hidden somewhere in the field below or in the forest, or are lying on the ground, dead. The food and other supplies are stacked high, and the girl from district 4, one of the careers, runs over to me. "Is that all?"

"All I could grab. The rest is just little knick knacks we don't really need."

"Start purifying water." I hated being commanded like this, but I have to listen. She drapes a rope she found over the supplies, and gives a nod to the boy from District 3. "There's only a few left, and Cato, Clove, Glimmer and Marvel have them, no problem. Go ahead and do your thing." I start wondering what his "thing" is. Then I see him head over to the discs we were brought in on. He brings them over, one by one, and I watch him while I'm purifying the water. He somehow strings them together and reactivates them by messing with the wires inside. Anyone who tries to steal food or other supplies will be blown to bits. Kind of gross, actually.

Hours later, the boy has taught us all how to navigate the trap he set up, so that we can get to the supplies. We eat and fill up on water. Cato tells me Clove didn't know the girl was Katniss, she just saw her back. I don't really care. I was pissed earlier, but now that Katniss is up in some tree somewhere, I'm not worried about it. They won't find her. The national anthem plays, and we look up to the sky. The Capitol seal shows, and they announce the dead tributes. The girl from District 3, the boy who tried to kill me from 4, the boy from 5, both from 6 and 7, boy from 8, both from 9, the girl from 10. There are 13 of us left.

The fact that Katniss' picture wasn't up in the sky was a huge relief. Even though I am confident she can win, being reminded that she is alive is comforting. Plus, this is the only way I know she is okay, at least until I see her again. So that leaves Katniss and I, plus the Careers: Marvel, Glimmer, Cato, Clove, and Kyra, the girl from district 4. Then there is the girl from district 5, the little girl Rue, which is also a huge relief, and her district partner Thresh. Also, the kid from 3, and his district partner, leaving a girl from district 8. I remember seeing the girl from 8 at the interviews. She's tall and strong, and has a no-bullshit attitude kind of like Katniss. I accept the fact that she may last awhile and I may be forced to kill her.

I am awakened by the Cato. "Get up, your shift." We sleep in shifts. There being seven of us, two stay awake while five sleep. If there was just one awake, they might try something. I sit next to the boy from district 3, who I'm with for my watch. Tonight, Clove gets to sleep without a shift, then it rotates. I guess by the position the moon is in that it is about 3 am. The boy and I haven't really spoken much, I think he may actually be afraid of me. He looks away towards the forest, he won't make eye contact or speak, at all. That is, until I start smelling fire. "Do you smell that" He asks me, his voice shaking. "It's fire." He and I both stand up and I see the smoke rising in the forest. I am not a killer, never have been. So naturally, I sit back down. "What are you doing?" The kid asks, accusingly. If he tells Cato that I saw a potential kill and did nothing, Cato may end our deal and go after Katniss immediately. So, I struggle with the thought. In the end, I can't bring myself to wake them, so the boy does. Thankfully, he doesn't say that I ignored the fire. "Wake up! Someone started a fire!" He shouts to them. Glimmer is up first. She grabs her bow and arrows, which makes me wince and smile at the same time. She couldn't hit even a giant bear with it. Glimmer is horrible with the bow and arrows. I'm thinking maybe she got it only so someone else didn't. None of them know about Katniss' 11 still. She kicks Marvel, who then bolts up and grabs his spear. The other three wake up. "Stay here and guard the supplies." He tells the boy from 3. I really should know his name, but why bother? Clove looks at me. "Let's go, loverboy." Cato and Marvel laugh at me. I guess that remark is supposed to bother me but it doesn't.

It doesn't take long to find her. We discover her, the girl from 8, sleeping by a campfire about ten minutes away from our camp. She wakes only when we are already standing over her. When her eyes open, she jolts up. I'm not surprised that Cato is the one to kill her. He takes his spear, whispers, "It's nothing personal," and lodges the tip into her throat. Cato withdraws the spear and cleans the blood off with some leaves he finds on the ground. "Check her." He directs Marvel. Marvel flips the girl over. "She doesn't have any supplies. Just a match book."

"Nothing useful. Take the matchbook anyway." Clove tells him. I have just witnessed a death for the first time in my life. I'd seen dead bodies, I'd seen murders on television when the Capitol decides to broadcast one. But this is the first time that I saw someone take someone else's life right in front of me. So, I am still. I have to remember to breathe. I think the girl from district 4 feels the same, as she is looking down trying to gather thoughts. Glimmer seems to notice us. "She would have never made it anyway, building a campfire in the middle of the night like that. If we didn't kill her, someone else would have found her and killed her." It doesn't make it okay.

"Better clear out so they can get the body before it starts stinking." I knew Cato was brute, but this seems a little insensitive. Still, I keep my mouth shut, I know better. "Shouldn't we have heard a cannon by now?" Asks Glimmer. Clove replies, "I'd say yes. Nothing to prevent them from going in immediately."

"Unless she isn't dead," the girl from four says.

"She's dead. I stuck her myself." Cato angrily replies. She doesn't like his tone, obviously, because answers back in the same way, "then where's the cannon?" She smiles. Marvel adds, "yeah, don't want to have to track her down twice."

"I said she's dead!" The girl from 4 and Cato argued for about a minute. I like her more than the other tributes, she seems to be more empathetic. But she is probably more stupid than the girl from 8 to argue with our leader. Finally, I try to end the argument before Cato sticks someone else with his spear. "We're wasting time! I'll go finish her and move on!" I get different looks from the group. Cato, Clove, and Marvel look surprised, and the other two look a little disappointed, like I was as ruthless as Cato. I tell myself to pay no attention as I turn to walk back.

"Go on then, lover boy!" Ugh. "See for yourself." I don't hate Cato, though I should. He kills without mercy, he is the Capitol's little hand puppet. He doesn't show remorse, and to top it off, he's a jerk. But I know that he can't be that bad. I try to imagine Cato in his home district, 2. District 2 is the hand puppet of the Capitol. The Capitol's favorite is District 2. In return for all their cooperation with the Capitol, they receive way more rations than everyone else, though I don't see what makes them so special, to my knowledge, all the districts cooperate with the Capitol. Except for 13, but that's been obliterated. Anyway, Cato must be different with his family and friends. I start thinking maybe Cato and Clove are romantic but then laugh at the thought. The chances of two sets of star-crossed lovers are extremely low. Plus, they act like a team now, but neither Cato nor Clove would risk their own life to save the other's.

I don't want to kill her. I see her there, lying on the ground. There's a bloody, gaping hole in her neck, and she can no longer breathe. She is slowly suffocating to death, and I feel sorry for her. I pick up my knife, and the look in her eyes tells me to finish her. I nearly vomit at the thought, but it is far better than letting her suffer, so I close my eyes and I finish her. When I come back, they all stop talking, and I can tell they are talking about me. "Was she dead?" Cato asks. "She is now." I stop to hear the cannon fire. "Ready to move on?" Dawn is rolling in now, and we half run, half walk back to our camp. Cato has decided it be best that we sleep during daylight. It's easier to keep watch, and it's easier to kill at night, when other tributes are sleeping.

I'm awoken by Clove at 6pm, now I'll be on watch duty with Kyra, until we're supposed to wake everyone up at 9. The kill list is normally in the sky about 9:30. Kyra isn't afraid of me, probably because she knows I'm not a killer. Still, how does she see through what I did earlier? She's quiet for awhile. She's sitting, facing the incline, and I'm sitting next to her, but facing the opposite way, into the forest. I notice she's got one strand of hair pulled over her head onto her face, and she's braiding it, but she's doing it differently than most people do. "Who taught you to do that?" I ask her. She looks up at me, then back to her hair, and she's quiet for awhile. Then, she answers me. "My sister." Her voice and the look on her face is different now, and I know that something is wrong. "What happened, if you don't mind me asking?"

"I don't mind. But for every question you ask me, I ask you one."

"Seems fair." She nods and then wipes her eyes. "My sister Olive was a contender in the Hunger Games 6 years ago. She was strong, but at the time, she was only 12, so she didn't have much of a chance. She was gone the first day. I was only 10 when I lost her." I feel bad for her, obviously. But I feel even worse for her parents. How much would that hurt? Losing two children to these sadistic games? "Do you have any more sisters?"

"Yes, one. She's eleven now. I'm afraid that my family's luck won't get any better and she'll end up here too. My turn." I nod. "Tell me about your family."

"I have two brothers. Next year, they'll be too old for the Hunger Games."

"That's good. Both parents alive?"

"Yes."  
>"Well, you seem to have it pretty well. Except for that girl. What's her name again?"<p>

"Katniss."

"Well, I won't be the one to kill her, I give you my word." I smile to say thanks. "Do you have anyone like her at home? I mean like a guy, of course." She nods her head. "Well, I guess I probably won't anymore. The odds aren't in our favor, either."

"How is he doing?"

"He was upset. I wasn't with him for long, but we'd been brought up together, so even though we were only technically a couple for a year, it was like losing a husband when I told him goodbye in the Justice Center." I want to ask her what she thinks of the Capitol, since most careers are the Capitol's lapdogs, then I remember we're being watched, so I keep quiet. We talk some more over the next couple of hours. She tells me about life in District 4 and I tell her about 12. She asks me about how I fell for Katniss, how I knew her. She asked me if Katniss felt the same to which I replied, "I wish, but no, I don't think so." Somehow, she figures out there may be another guy. "She's already attached to someone else?"

"No. There's a guy back home that loves her as much as I do though. Plus, he comes from a poor family as well, and they've known each other a lot longer. Katniss didn't _really _know me until we were up on that stage."

"What's he have that you don't have?"

"History with her. The same background, the same struggles. He's helped her feed her family. I have, but not as much as him. He's older and taller than me too."

"Well, if you're willing to risk your life to save her, then she's crazy for not loving you the way you love her."

"That's the thing, she doesn't know. I couldn't tell her. If I did, she'd refuse to let me." The look in Kyra's eyes are full of sorrow. She feels bad for us, I guess, but she's probably also thinking about the guy back home. The anthem plays and it dawns on us that we're late to wake the rest of them. We shake them awake quickly, but they don't miss anything. The only face is of the girl I helped kill. It still makes me sick to my stomach.

Tonight, they decide we'll be going down that steep incline, Cato saw the guy from 11 and the girl from 3 head down there. When we reach the incline, we start stepping downhill. Now I can see that it's just a big open field of tall plants. I'm no farmer, so I can only guess… wheat? Corn maybe? There are long rows of it, and it goes on for at least a mile in every direction. They could be anywhere in here. "We should split up." With the boy from 3 guarding supplies-he can't do much, he has no talent other than assembling the mines, and he's small- there remains the six of us. Kyra and I are instructed to go straight ahead, and Cato is about to tell the rest of them who they go with, although we all already know Clove with go with Cato, when he stops. I've never seen his face like this: Full of terror. I can only imagine what is behind me in the direction he's looking in. In his eyes, I see a reflection: There's fire in the sky.


	8. The Game Changer

The fire is intense, so intense, so bright, so vast that we all just stare at it in awe for minutes. The first one to break out of this daze is, of course, Cato. "It's all the way over there, so let's get a move on." We split into our appropriate groups, and we're searching the mazes of wheat-Kyra told me that's what it was- and I honestly am not really even searching. I'm worried about Katniss. I can protect her from the careers for awhile, and I she can kill anything she needs to, but nothing can protect her from fire. Not me, not a bow and arrow, though she doesn't have one. The wall of fire recedes, and I hear no cannons, which reassure me. Maybe she got to a water source and drenched herself. That's what you're supposed to do. If you can't go all the way under the water, you're supposed to drench yourself. At least, that's what my dad told me.

My fear is reignited when I see balls of fire being shot in every direction, not just the forest. I look into the sky the same time Kyra does, and we see flaming fireballs heading towards us. Immediately we look at each other, then I whisper, "Run!" I can't get much else out other than a whisper, I'm so terrified. I hate fire. I've always been super paranoid about fire or being burnt. The other careers have the same idea we do. We're all sprinting, towards the lake, and our camp. When we see them, I notice that they've been at least grazed. Clove's face looks red, and even if fire didn't hit it, it probably came close enough to give her some kind of burn similar to a sunburn. Glimmer's hair on one side has frayed off, and her ear is inflamed and bleeding. Marvel's holding his left arm. Cato looks fine. Luckily, Kyra and I haven't been hit.

By the time we get to the lake, the fireballs stop, but we don't get the chance to rest. The girl from district 3, the one that we were looking for, is stealing from our supply. "Hey!" Glimmer shouts. "Stop her!" Clove orders. They run towards her, and we follow. The six of us chase her through the forest, to a small creek. This girl is quick, I mean, she's quicker than anyone I've ever seen. She's not small, either. She's pretty tall, and average sized, but can breeze through the forest like a ten year old weakling. By the time we hit the creek, we've lost her. To our left, we see a silhouette sitting in the water, soaking. There's no way she could have escaped us, then went swimming, it doesn't make much sense. Still, it is another tribute, so we take off after them.

I did not expect this tribute to be Katniss. I am relieved she got away from the fire, but it charred up her leg pretty bad. She was soaking it in the cool water, the second best thing to do for a burn after medicine, which she didn't have. I thought Cato would stop when he noticed it was her- that was part of the deal. When he didn't stop, I realized he was going to kill her, then me, to get us out of the way. I had to somehow signal her to look behind her so she'd see them charging her, but Kyra sensed my panic and helped me. She pretended to fall, then let out a small shriek. It was small enough to be believable, but big enough for Katniss to hear. She got out of the water and ran to the forest. To no surprise, the careers chased her in.

By the time we got to the tree she climbed, she was already at least fifty feet in the air. I thought she'd be terrified, but she acts like she is not afraid, which I admire. She even jokes about the whole situation. "How's everything with you?" She calls down. Cato smirks. "Well enough. Yourself?" He is playing along. "It's been a bit warm for my taste." I want to laugh, but I stop myself. "The air's better up here, why don't you come on up?" Ah, so a joke, and a dare. That's her, alright. "Think I will," says Cato. _No you won't. _I'm behind Cato and I've got a knife in my hand. I could kill him right here, right now if I wanted to. But I know there is no way in hell he'll ever make it up that tree. Still, he tries, and fails, horribly. Glimmer tries next, but she's much heavier than Katniss is, and though Glimmer gets up a lot farther in the tree than Cato did, the branches are brittle, and Glimmer gets down before they snap under her weight. Before any more feeble attempts are made, I tell them, "Oh, let her stay up there. It's not like she's going anywhere. We'll deal with her in the morning." I say this extra loud as a signal to her. Katniss is a hunter; she could climb down that tree and walk out of here, stepping directly over us, and still not make any noise. I'm hoping she'll get the signal and sneak away before morning arrives. "Why the change of heart lover boy?" Clove asks. She must be suspicious of me not confronting Cato over his trying to kill her. "So you all broke the deal. So what? Frankly, I'm tired of these games. The sooner you kill her, the sooner you kill me." I tried to sound as indifferent as possible, and it must have worked, none of them kept their attention on me.

Unfortunately, Katniss can't come down, because Glimmer has been put on watch duty. I can only hope she has enough sense to stay in the tree. In the morning, I'll figure something else out. I have no idea what. My eyes become tired, and before I know it, I'm drifting off. What a rude awakening. Something bops me in the head. I immediately think it's Thresh trying to bash in my skull, then I look to my right as I feel a sharp sting in my chest. A nest. "Tracker Jackers!" I scream. Everyone is awake, and I then put the pieces together. It fell, or was _cut_ out of the very same tree Katniss was in. Her adaptability still surprises me. We're all stung at least three times. Cato shouts for us to head to the lake, but Glimmer passes out right there, convulsing. Kyra, to my disappointment, begins to fall down and convulse just before we get to the lake. I, on the other hand, know to pull the stingers out. It helps lessen the amount of venom, and provides an opening for some of the poison to leave the body. It looks like Cato, Clove, and Marvel have the same idea. In the end, it's just the four of us who survive long enough to submerge in the lake and wander back to the forest.

Cato is stumbling, and half-hallucinating, but he's trying to fight it. He wants her now. He wants to kill her. "I can't believe I let you talk me into letting her live", he shouts. I sprint, being stung fewer times, to get to the forest first. I see Katniss collecting the bow and arrows from Glimmer's now-deceased body. "What are you doing here?" I ask her. She doesn't respond, as she's already lucid. I take a spear that lies on the ground- it was Glimmer's- and poke her side. "Get out of here! Get out of here now!" It takes all my strength to stay awake long enough to make sure she gets away. She is weaker than Cato is right now, she's been stung three times as well. She had the sense to pull the stingers out as well, but she's a lot smaller than the rest of us, so the venom gets her more quickly. Thankfully, I spent a lot of time reading about the Tracker Jackers. If there are fewer than five to seven stings, and all stingers are pulled out, the fatality rate is only about 5%. She's a fighter, so I'm sure she'll be fine. Venom attacks smaller people quicker, but they also come to quicker. That gives her an advantage. If she can get away from Cato, then Cato, Clove, Marvel, and myself will pass out. She'll awaken before us, and then she can kill the four of us, easy. I only hope that is what she will do. But she's not a killer either.

Cato gets through the forest just as he sees Katniss take off somewhere. He would have chased her, but now, the poison is too strong, and he can barely stand. He tries to kill me then, knowing that I tipped her off, and saved her life. He's figured out that all along I'd never planned to actually let them kill her, or me. The poison weakens his arm, and instead of killing me, he just slashes my leg. Still, looking down, I've lost a lot of blood already. After I pass out from the tracker jacker poison, I'll probably bleed to death. Just as well, that's much more peaceful than being killed. I let my now-weak leg give out and I fall to the ground. I'm only awake for a few minutes, but the pain from the cut and the stings is unbearable. So I close my eyes, and think of my family back home, Katniss, Kyra, Rue, and most of all, my hatred for the Capitol, and then I let myself die.

By some sort of miracle, I wake up. I don't know how long it's been, but I'm severely dehydrated and hungry. I can live without food, but I need water. I try to stand, then remember my leg. I don't want to look at it, it will just make it worse. I feel fresh, warm blood running down my leg, but not as much as earlier. I am woozy, dizzy, and by now, probably only half-alive. I am useless to Katniss now. I can't stand up, I can't run, I can barely even think. All I can do now is wait to die. I have a strong sense of urgency. If I've been out for more than a day, my picture won't appear in the sky. Cato will come back for me. I'll probably bleed to death, so it would be a waste of time, but I don't know if Cato is as smart as he leads on. I sure as hell don't want to find out. I decide to get water, then figure something else out later.

The nearest water source is the pond that Katniss was soaking her leg in, and the pond we got in to get rid of the tracker jackers. It takes all my remaining energy to drag myself the quarter mile to the stream. It takes me three hours, after which I'm completely drained of energy. I don't care that the water isn't purified. I'm thirsty, severly dehydrated, and I'm dying anyway. Might as well make the death as comfortable as possible, and being thirsty isn't comfortable. I take in as much water as I can, then, propping myself up on one elbow, I use my mouth to carry water over to the dirt next to me. I don't have much control over my hands, as hands and feet are the first to lose blood flow when someone has an injury like mine. All blood in an emergency situation goes directly to the heart, lungs, and brain, so using my mouth is the best I can do. The water I drop in the dirt turns to mud. I use the mud to cover myself. I start with my legs. I do the best I can not to glance at the injured one. I look away, but while I'm smearing it with mud, I feel just how bad it is. After I'm covered with mud, I use some pond scum to cover with as well. In case Cato does come back to kill me, he won't find me. This way I can die peacefully.

This is taking longer than I originally thought. I waited all evening to die, and though I keep feeling weaker, but it never comes. In the sky that night, two people did die. The boy from 3 who was guarding the career's supplies was one of them. He must have done something to piss off Cato. Then there's the boy from 10. I remember him now, he had a bad leg just going into the games, how he survived this long is beyond me. He must have been really smart. So, that leaves Katniss and I-though I probably won't make it through the night, the girl from 3, Rue and her district partner, Cato, Clove, and Marvel. Only 8. Well, I had hoped to get this far, but it actually happening brings a smile to my face. Then I remember all the other kids who died and the smile leaves quickly. I feel myself becoming weaker still, and allow myself to fall asleep.

I'm lying on a table, in the middle of a small shack in the Seam. I look down at my leg, and the sight makes me throw up. It's a wide cut, at least two inches wide, you can see clear to the bone. There's a woman standing over me, or rather, a girl. It's Katniss' little sister, Prim. "Don't worry. I'll have that fixed up as soon as I can." She says it with such a happy demeanor and a warm grin on her face, that it makes me feel more relaxed than I have in a long time. She leaves, then returns with some leaves in a bowl. I'm not a doctor. I don't know if I'm supposed to eat them or what. Then, just as she is about to explain, I see a dark shadow standing in a corner. Prim screams, as Cato's face comes into view, his sword held high. "I should have finished you when I had the chance!" He says, and throws his sword into my gut.

I wake up sweating, though I don't know how, I'm freezing. It's hot outside, and I'm covered in pond scum and mud, but I'm shivering uncontrollably. I feel my head, and my fever must be sky high. Now I find myself debating how I'll die. I decide to make a mental list in my head of all the possible ways, the first being the most likely. That's how anxious I am to get this over with. I want peace. 1. I'll die from fever

2. I'll die from blood loss

3. I'll die from blood poisoning

4. Cato will find and kill me

5. One of the other careers will find and kill me

6. Unpurified water will kill me

I must find other ways of occupying my time so I don't lose my mind. So I reflect on the dream I had earlier. Prim a doctor? I know their mother used to be a doctor, or at least something close to it, but Prim's only 12. Why was she healing me? Did I make it back to District 12 in the dream? Maybe I never left and I was injured some other way. No, because if it had been that, Cato wouldn't have been there. I start to wonder if maybe the dream was a sign that Cato will come to find me. I don't think he will. If he looks at all, I'm very well camouflaged.

I hear two cannons fire very close together, and I find myself hoping that it's Cato and the district 11 boy. Katniss could probably fight off the others. I won't know for sure until nightfall. Then there will be six, six of us left. I find myself again with nothing better to do than prioritize the order I think the other tributes will die in. As much as I hope it's Cato and the other guy, it isn't realistic. 1. Me, of course

2. Rue. Though I hope she at least makes it a few more nights.

3. The girl from 3.

4. Marvel- he is tall and skinny, and a little clumsy. Clove could probably take him easily.

5. Clove

6. The guy from 11

7. Cato

I curse myself for mentally making that list. Fantasizing about death, even my own, is what the Capitol wants, and I shouldn't give them the satisfaction, even if they can' t hear my thoughts. Honestly, I wouldn't be surprised if they installed chips into our brains to monitor our every thought. I thought the oppression we had before was bad, if they did something like that, we'd be prisoners in body and mind. I don't want to think about it anymore. I have to entertain myself somehow. I don't have to wait for long. A mockingjay sits perched on a rock in clear view. It sings a four tuned song, and it must have heard it somewhere. The careers wouldn't bother with such a thing. Katniss hates singing, even though she's good at it. A little part of me hopes that it's Rue who taught the mockingjay that beautiful melody. This mockingjay looks different than the rest. It is exceptionally beautiful. Most mockingjays are pure grey. This one is grey, with a black stripe on it's head running down between its eyes. It's also got the most interesting dark grey pattern on its light grey coat. It looks like a leaf on each side of the bird. I want to sing something to the bird, but if I do it may lose the melody it was singing before. I want to hear it again, so I do my best to copy the tune in a whistle. The mockingjay sung what I whistled, and it was pretty close to the original. I want to hear it again, but the mockingjay sings something else this time. I knew this mockingjay was special. Most of these birds can only remember one song at a time, this one begins to sing another. Not only that, but it copies the original singer so well, that you hear their voice in the song. When the mockingjay opens it's mouth to sing, I hear Katniss.

The mockingjay sings, using Katniss' voice, a popular folk song in district 12.

_Deep in the meadow, under the willow,_

_A bed of grass, a soft green pillow, _

_Lay down your head and close your sleepy eyes_

_And when they open again the sun will rise. _

_Here it's safe, here it's warm,_

_Here the daisies guard you from every harm_

_Here your dreams are sweet, and tomorrow brings them true_

_Here is the place where I love you._

The song doesn't end here, but the tune does. The tune goes from a general tone, to a more pain-filled tone. I hear Katniss' voice still in the next stanza, but it sounds like she is trying to choke back tears. The song starts up again, and it's still so beautiful, it brings a tear to my eye as well.

_Deep in the meadow, hidden far away_

_A cloak of leaves, a moonbeam ray_

_Forget your woes and let your troubles lay_

_And when again it's morning, they'll wash away._

_Here it's safe, here it's warm,_

_Here the daisies guard you from every harm,_

_Here your dreams are sweet and tomorrow brings them true, _

_Here is the place where I love you._

Tears flow freely now. I curse myself for being such a sissy, but the song reminds me of home, and I'll never see it again. It makes me wonder why Katniss, who hates singing, would sing this song, one she probably hasn't sung since that music class when we were nine. Maybe she is singing it to comfort herself. Maybe she misses home too, and wants to bring that memory back. Still, she doesn't _actually _have to sing it to remember home. I know she isn't singing it for my benefit. My name hasn't been in the sky yet, but she probably figures it will be tonight. Plus, she probably doesn't remember me saving her life after the tracker jackers. The last memory she has of me is probably seeing me with the careers. I can't imagine what she must think of me. Talking all that big talk on the roof about not wanting to turn into a monster, then going to kill off the girl from 8. Desperately trying to make friends with her, then joining the careers and chasing her up a tree. I wouldn't blame her if she hates me. Then my mind conjures up the most logical reason. She was singing it to comfort someone else.

I can't imagine who in the world it would be. Everyone in here is an enemy. Then an image of Prim in the dream crosses my mind, and I immediately think of Rue. I wince. I sincerely hope she was not comforting Rue as she died. I then try to think happy thoughts. Maybe they joined up and killed the careers. No, probably not. Maybe Rue is dying from something less violent, like illness, but probably not. Maybe Rue and Katniss are sitting around a fire, eating game Katniss caught, and speaking of home. Probably not, but I'll stick with that idea.

It's dark now. I listen to the crickets chirping and the creek flowing. This is a wonderful sound, too wonderful for a place like this. I'm thankful for it, though. It's a much better sound than fireballs and cannons and hovercrafts. The sky lights up as the Panem anthem plays. I wonder for a moment why the mockingjays never pick up the Capitol anthem and imitate that. I think maybe they know the Capitol is evil. Then I realize the dozen things draining my life slowly are probably making me crazy. They are just birds. They don't know the difference. Still…I've never heard one imitate a Capitol anthem. I want to cross my fingers and hope Rue and Katniss are alive when the anthem stops, but I can't move my hands. The pictures in the sky belong to Rue and Marvel. At least one of the careers is out of the way. Still, it pains me to see Rue's picture in the sky. I try to make myself sleep now, but then the head gamemaker's voice is blaring. That never happens. I am now paying full attention. "Congratulations, tributes! You've already come so far, only six of you left! It's been a very exciting Hunger Games so far. Now, there's been a rule change. Yes, that's right. A rule change. Two tributes, yes, two, may come out of the arena alive…_if _ they are from the same district. May the odds be ever in your favor!" I can't stand that guy. I keep thinking of different ways I loathe him, and these games, and the Capitol, but then what he said sinks in. Katniss and I can both win.


	9. The Romance

At first, I am extremely happy. If we could defeat the rest of them, she and I could both go home and….that's it. The happiness doesn't last long. I won't make it out of here unless Katniss kills the other four of them in the next few hours or so, until I die. I certainly am in no condition to kill any of them. Even if she did do it, and we did make it out of here and go home, things would probably go back to normal, or be way worse. Either we'd both go about our business like nothing happened, trying to forget the traumatic weeks we've had, or we'd both be so emotionally scarred and paranoid that we'd sink into depression or paranoia or madness, or all three. Life is not a fairy tale. I am not going to save the day, and we are not going home to live happily ever after. Katniss will probably never be interested in either me or Gale, or anyone for that matter. If by some chance she did want a companion, I'm 99% sure it'd be Gale. Honestly, if I was her, I'd choose Gale myself. So there isn't really anything to look forward to. I am still hoping for Katniss to win, for obvious reasons, but I've no plans to leave this arena.

I'm sure Katniss heard the announcement, but she won't come and look for me. I'm not that talented, so I'm a liability, and she probably hates me right now. Even if she did find me, she is no doctor, she couldn't nurse me back to health, and she wouldn't want to either, after all the things she thinks I did. I am a little worried though, I'm sure Cato and Clove are doing remarkably well, and now that they've learned they can both live, they'll be doubly strong, because it's like Cato and Clove becomes Super Cloto. Katniss could pick them off easily with a bow and arrow and a tree, but it worries me a little.

I find myself pondering what would persuade the gamemakers to change the rules. I'm surprised, first of all, that the Capitol is going for this. But I don't question it. This has never happened before. Not once. Watching is a requirement, so the amount of watchers isn't an issue. They don't need to change the rules to get more watchers. Maybe they want to play up a storyline-then it hits me. Most likely, they are trying to give the Capitol citizens what they want. They want a soap opera. They want murder and romance. And romance is supposed to be my department. Still, they won't get much. Katniss probably wouldn't look me in the eye, she is probably out there hunting careers, saving me for last. Even if by some miracle she was willing to play up the romance, I am practically paralyzed. They won't be getting any romance from us.

I spend the next couple hours trying to find musical patterns in the sound of the creek. Then a mockingjay shows up. It's not the one from before, but any mockingjay will do. I prepare my mouth to whistle, but before I can, the mockingjay mimics Katniss' voice. It says, "Peeta! Peeta!" Katniss is calling my name, or, was calling my name. I don't know how fresh this mockingjay's memory is. She could have been calling me the first day we were in the arena for all I know. I close my eyes. I feel closer to death now than I did previously. I'm 100% sure that the next time I fall asleep, I won't wake up. But then I hear it. Small footsteps. So very light. I'm positive I only hear the footsteps because I'm teetering on the edge of life and death. Everything seems louder right now. I don't know if it's the life and death thing, or the tracker jacker poison, or the fever, or something else. They get closer. I know it isn't the careers, they make tons of noise when walking, this is very light. It's not the boy from 11, I doubt it's Katniss. Maybe it's dead relative coming to get me. But then I see her.

"Come to finish me off, sweetheart?" I don't care at this point if she gets offended at that particular term of endearment. I really don't care about anything anymore. My inhibitions are so low I'm thinking of just telling her everything I have ever wanted to say. Well, Katniss is almost stepping on me and she can't find me. So I hid myself well. She whispers, "Peeta? Where are you?" She inches closer and nearly steps on my leg. The good one. "Well, don't step on me." I open my eyes then and she jumps back. She is surprised at how well I'm camouflaged. I do my best to muster up a smile, but I'm sure my face looks weird. She asks me to close my eyes again, and she tells me that my cake decorating really paid off. Well, I should hope so. That's pretty much all I have to work with. I come up with, "Yes. Frosting. The final defense of the dying."

"You're not going to die." She tells me firmly. Yes, I am going to die. I already would be if she hadn't come to find me. "Says who?" She can't possibly know I won't die. She's probably just saying that to make me feel better in my last moments. "Says me, we're on the same team now, you know." Yes, I know, but I am still going to die. I don't tell her that, no sense telling her that. "So I heard. Nice of you to find what's left of me." I'm so out of it, I'm not sure if I'm acting like a wuss or like a jerk, but I'm sure it's at least one of them. She doesn't seem bothered by it. Shocker.

First, she makes me drink out of her water bottle. I don't refuse, I am thirsty. I may as well drink something. "Did Cato cut you?" She asks me. "Left leg. Up high." I tell her. She makes an attempt to drag my limp body into the stream to wash off the mud and pond scum, that have know been caked on so long they've become one with my skin. I wonder how badly I must reek right now. I probably smell like Haymitch's pits after a long summer of heavy drinking and no showers. This thought makes me laugh and Katniss looks at me like she doesn't know why in the world I'd be laughing right now. When I stop laughing, I tell her, "Lean down a minute first. Need to tell you something." She leans down, but she's guarded. "Remember, we're madly in love, so it's alright to kiss me anytime you feel like it." I can't believe I said that. I laugh some more. A few weeks ago, I couldn't even muster up a simple "Hello, how are you today?" The few times she brought bread from us, Riley would do the talking.

I remember once, it was just me, and Gale wasn't with her. She brought some coins up to our bread stand, and looked like she was waiting for me to ask her those words. "Hello, how are you today?" But all I could come up with was, "Nice squirrel." She was carrying a squirrel in her game sack. "Uh, thanks? I'll take that one." She said, pointing to a loaf. I handed it to her, and when she put the coins in my hand, I dropped them on the stand. "Sorry," I muster. She looks at me as if to ask why I'd be sorry. She just tries to smile and walks away.

Now, a year or so later, I just flat out tell her to kiss me. She won't, and that's one of the reasons I wasn't afraid to ask. But the main reason is because I may as well give it a shot, since I'm dying anyway. At first I expect her to slap me. She won't do that though, not when I'm in this condition. Then, I expect her to ignore it and pretend she didn't hear me. But I was thoroughly surprised when she jerked her head back and laughed. What's so funny about it? "Thanks, I'll keep that in mind." I am sure she said she'd keep it in mind for the sake of the audience. Can't blame me for trying.

She does her best to drag me to the stream, but I'm so weak now that I can't move on my own. Not only am I crying out in pain and drawing attention to us-Cato and Clove will target she and I first, I'm sure- but I feel my leg wound reopening. Warm blood flows freely again. I think there is no way I'll survive now. I'm already on the edge of death, with more blood loss? There's no way…So when she suggests she roll me into the stream, I agree. Why not? If the pain gets to be too much I can just drown myself. "Okay," she says after only getting me a few inches away from the stream, "I'm not going to put you all the way in." So much for drowning myself.

The blood doesn't flow as much as I thought it would, and thirty minutes go by and I am feeling the way I was before. She tells me to keep an eye on the woods while she drenches me in water. When she dumps enough water on me, she begins to unzip my jacket. I have to admit my weak heart does beat slightly faster when she takes my jacket off, then my shirt, then my undershirt she cuts away. She looks at the tracker jacker sores on my body, and uses all her strength to prop me up against a rock. I guess I didn't get all the stingers, which is surprising, because normally it would kill you. I got two, but I didn't notice the sting under my ear, and one on my chest I pulled out only part of it. She is sure to get the rest of the stingers out, then puts stuff on the oozing, inflamed, sting areas. I must look absolutely irresistible right now, what with my smell, my messed up hair, my muddy body, and those disgusting pockets of venom. Not to mention I'm sure I've got blood poisoning by now. She puts her hand on my bare chest, and my heart beats quick again. She immediately goes into a first aid kit-who knows where she got it- and takes out two pills, telling me to swallow them. I know they are to bring down a fever. She must have felt I had a fever when she felt my skin. The pills won't do much good, since the fever is being caused by toxic blood. It will only be a tiny help, if it helps at all, but I swallow them anyway. Won't hurt.

When she asks if I'm hungry, I realize that I'm not. I actually haven't thought about food since the day Cato cut my leg. I've been so close to dying that my body began shutting down. I probably didn't need food. How many days ago was that that Cato cut my leg? Two? Three? Four? Who knows. I've been half gone the whole time. "Not really, it's funny, I haven't been hungry for days." The look on her face tells me that's not good. That's fine, I already knew that. "Peeta, we need to get some food in you." I want to say no, but the look on her face is hard to say no too. She's pleading with me to eat something. Instead of just turning up my nose and looking away, I tell her, "It'll just come right back up." Which is true, my body doesn't have the strength to digest anything right now. I'm surprised the water hasn't come back up. She forces me to eat a few dried apples. I do my best to keep it down, and surprisingly, I don't throw it up at least not yet. "Thanks, I'm much better, really. Can I go to sleep now, Katniss?" It's kind of a lie. I'm not _really_ feeling better, I just don't want to eat anymore. I actually want to die so she can just leave me be and go on and win this thing already. She's got this. Then, I do feel better, if not physically, emotionally. I can die knowing that she has forgiven me. "Soon," she tells me. "I need to get a look at your leg first."

She removes my boots, my socks and my pants next. I'm down to only my undershorts now, and I'm freezing. The fever, no doubt. She sees my leg, then immediately looks away, towards the forest. "Pretty bad, huh?"

"So-So." She mentions that she's seen worse. That's slightly comforting. At least I'm not the most repulsive person in the world. "First thing is to clean it well." Good luck with that. It's a huge gaping hole. I can tell she is considering removing my undershorts. They are also caked with mud, and pus. It's probably for the best. Can't say I'd mind if she did. It's not like we would _do _anything anyway. It's just to clean everything up. In the end, she leaves them on. She suggests giving my leg some air. "And then you'll patch it up?" I ask her. "That's right. In the meantime, you eat these." I don't want to eat. Still, I take the dried pears and just suck on one for now.

She spends awhile bringing out the tracker jacker poison with some leaves. All her practice with different herbs beyond the fence have paid off in more ways than one. I am starting to feel better now that the poison is gone. But unfortunately the blood poisoning will get me eventually. She's busy getting the rest of the poison out. I want so desperately to ask her if she is mad at me, or what she thought when she saw me with the careers. "Katniss?" She pauses with what she's doing, and looks up. She meets my gaze. This is the first time we've ever held eye contact for more than a millisecond. It sends a rush of blood to my head, and I instead of asking her what I planned, I come out with, "How about that kiss?" She laughs even harder this time. Either she thinks the idea of kissing me is so ridiculous that it's funny….or…there's a small chance that it is actually a nervous laugh. I am hoping for the latter. "Something wrong?" She avoids the question. "I… I'm no good at this. I'm not my mother. I've no idea what I'm doing and I hate pus." I smile. Katniss, the girl who was on fire, the one who runs from nothing, the one who doesn't take any crap from anyone, the one who stays strong when no one else can…finally opens up to me and admits that she doesn't know what she's doing. She's been playing everything off so well up until now that I was starting to believe she knew_ exactly _what she was doing, even if I knew better. For her, admitting that she didn't have control over a situation left her vulnerable. The fact that she admitted that she didn't know what she was doing told me that she is beginning to trust me. I didn't get kissed, but this was good too. "How do you hunt?"

"Killing is easier than this. Although for all I know, I may be killing you." _I'm already dying, sweetheart. _"Can you speed it up a little?" I say to annoy her. I think it's fun. "No, shut up and eat your pears." I put a hand to my hand to say, "Yes ma'am!" Then I realize that I have the feeling back in my hands and my feet.

"What's next, Dr. Everdeen?" She puts some burn ointment on the cut, which stings a little, then wraps it up. Again, she considers removing my shorts. "Here, cover yourself with this while I wash your shorts." I'm already on a roll, so I say, "Oh, I don't care if you see me."

"You're just like the rest of my family. I care, all right?" I take my shorts off and toss them in the current. I actually do feel much better. If I didn't have blood poisoning, I'd probably live. I don't think Katniss notices that I have blood poisoning yet, and I don't have the heart to tell her. "You know, you're kind of squeamish for such a lethal person. I wish I'd have let you give Haymitch a shower after all." She winces, before asking me what Haymitch has sent me so far. Which is nothing. I tell her I didn't receive anything. She tells me she got burn medicine and bread. "I always knew you were his favorite."

"Please, he can't even stand to be in the same room with me."

"Because you're just alike." She doesn't respond, and my eyes are getting heavy, I am relieved when I can finally sleep.

Katniss wakes me up a little after she's finished washing my clothes and cleaning her supplies. She tells me we're too out in the open, and we have to move. As much as I hate it, I know we have to move. I struggle, and finally am able to stand up. With her help, I make it, barely, about 50 yards downstream. She finds a rock formation that could easily be made into a makeshift shelter. You walk down a few steps, and then, to the left, is the cave opening. There's a slab of rock about the size of a king bed. I lean my back against he wall and watch Katniss try to make a cover to disguise it. She fails miserably several times, and she gets more frustrated every time. I am doing the best I can not to laugh, but it's hilarious. Finally, she's got a cover up well enough. An animal won't find us but a tribute might know someone had crafted it. I just want her to rest. I don't think we'll be found anytime soon. "Katniss?" I say. The last two times I said her name that way, I asked her to kiss me, so I am surprised when she comes over to me and brushes the hair out of my eyes. Her touch is electrifying. Every part of me feels more alive, but when her hand leaves my face the feeling goes also. But when she brushes the hair out of my eyes, I catch her glance again. We're staring into each other's eyes again, and I want to kiss her, but I don't think she wants me to. Though, that look…I don't know. I've never seen my mom look at my dad that way, and they're _married._ I don't know what the gleam in her eyes means. "Thanks for finding me." She smiles. A real, genuine smile, not a fake smile, or a half-smile, or a sly smirk. I made her smile, finally. "You would have found me if you could." That is definitely true. Had I been well enough, I would have found her and teamed up with her immediately. She puts her hand on my forehead to feel my temperature, and suddenly, her smile turns to a frown. She looks worried, and I know why. She feels the fever is active. It's either the same or higher than before. I think she finally realizes that there is a very real chance that I will die. "Yes. Look, if I don't make it back-" I said, _if_ for her benefit. She smiles again to joke with me, but it's a worried smile. "Don't talk like that, I didn't drain all that pus for nothing."

"I know, but just in case I don't…"

"No, Peeta, I don't even want to discuss it." I see pain in her eyes and hear it in her voice. Is she afraid to see me die, or afraid of going back home without me? Or does she really care about me? She puts her hand on my lips. There it is again, the electricity. "But I…" Then, it happens. She replaces her hand with her lips. For a moment, I think I'm hallucinating. In the middle of the kiss I think of pinching myself to be sure it's real. The electricity returns. This time, it feels like a volt straight to my heart. My chest feels the way it does after a long run. My heart is beating so fast I feel like it might just stop. Then, as quick as it begun, it was over. She pulls back.

I'm still in la-la-land from the kiss, so I don't notice anything until all of a sudden the sleeping bag is around me, and she tells me, "You're not going to die. I forbid it, all right?" I can't say I'm going to die anymore. I feel more alive than ever. "All right."

I am woken up by her kissing me again. Again, it doesn't seem real. The girl who I could never talk to but desperately wanted to. The one who could sing so well that the birds stopped to listen. The one who I've risked my life for. The one I took a beating for. She was kissing me. She was kissing me, and not Gale. All of a sudden I feel a little bad for Gale. I know how I would feel if she were kissing him. I hope he isn't watching. It's mandatory to watch, but still, I hope he isn't watching. "Peeta! Look what Haymitch sent you!" She says, presenting me with something I can actually stomach. It's a pot of hot broth. _About time, drunk ass. _


	10. The Development

**(A/N: In this chapter, Peeta remembers details about the previous countries before Panem came to exist. Since the book said Panem used to be North America, that means basically, US Canada and Mexico. I'm going to elaborate based on where in North America each district might be. It is completely my opinion, as there is no accurate map of the where the districts are located.)**

The broth is good, and I am able to keep it down, which shocks me. Still, I am only able to sip a few spoonfuls. I push the bowl away and yawn. "No, I don't think so," she tells me. "Eat more."

"Really, Katniss, I can't."

"Yes you can. You can live days after losing like half your blood. You can do anything." I shake my head. "I really just want to sleep." She sighs. She wants me to eat more, but I am queasy at the thought. My body isn't healthy enough yet. It is still in shutdown mode. Eating is probably confusing it. She taps her fingers on her knee. She looks up at the sky then down at the ground, she looks like she is debating something. "Okay," she says, "let's try this." I await anxiously. What? "Try what?"

"For every sip you take, I'll do something for you."

"Anything?"

"Anything reasonable. Answer questions, kiss you, etc. I won't go do something crazy like jump out of trees and shit." That was the first time I heard her curse. Kind of funny. "Okay. What's the deal with you and Gale, like, honestly." She looks away. "Take a sip first." I shake my head. "A deal's a deal." She sighs again. "I love Gale, he's like family. He's always had my back."

"You know that's not what I meant."

"Take a sip." I force myself to do as she says. Then she goes on. "There is nothing, and hasn't ever been anything romantic between Gale and I." I take another sip, earning me another personal question that she would never answer if we weren't playing this little game. "But did you ever want there to be?"

"No…Maybe… I really don't know." She looks like she wants to stop, but I take two more sips, which causes her to bite her lip to prepare for my next question. "Explain that."

"Peeta come on this makes me uncomfortable."

"Okay, you don't have to answer."

"Thank you." I take two more sips of the broth, then I guess she feels guilty because she answers me anyway. "I guess, you know, I always kind of thought I'd end up with Gale. I mean, that's what everyone expected. You think I didn't hear the gossip going on in town?" I actually didn't think she knew about that. "We'd get looks and I'd hear whispers all the time, that's why I was always in such a hurry to leave. I wasn't ready for any of that. My main priority was Prim and my mother." At this point, it starts to rain, which is actually very beneficial, because if we speak in low voices, the country can't hear what we say above the rain. I nod my head, now that she's going, I don't think she wants to stop. It must feel nice to let it out. "I didn't want to get married and I especially didn't, or, don't want to have kids. Because of this." She says, meaning the Hunger Games. "So, I don't know." It takes me five minutes, but I finally manage to sip three spoonfuls. "Did you ever kiss him?"

"No." Katniss says she doesn't know about Gale. You never really know about someone until you kiss them. "I'm sorry," I say. "What for?"

"For making you talk about stuff you didn't want to talk about."

"It's fine. I volunteered half of that information anyway. Just don't bring it up again, please?" I nod. I take one more sip of soup, and lean forward to kiss her. She gets up. "I'm going to go for a walk."

"In the rain?"

"I'm not going far, I'll be right back."

I doze off, and when I wake up, I realize I'm finally warm. Though my temperature has been sky high, I've been shivering. I look down and see Katniss' head nuzzled against my neck, between my chest and head. She's sleeping. She must have gotten cold, my body heat is high enough to make this sleeping bag feel like a warm bed back home. I don't know if I should, but I put my arm around her and fall back asleep. I wake up a couple of times after that, each time she's sleeping in almost the same position she was the last time. Each time I realize there is a freshly damp cloth on my forehead. She must be waking up and changing it. I don't think it will do anything, but the fact that she is trying to take care of me means a lot.

Then, I wake up for good in the morning. I feel warm still, and I'm sweating. I realize my fever must have broken. I feel my head, and it's less hot. It's still there, though. I look to Katniss, but then realize that she isn't there. I sit up against the cave wall and anxiously await for her to return. After about ten minutes, I become afraid that something is wrong and I try to stand up to go find her. When I'm getting up, she walks down. "I got up and you were gone, I was worried about you." She laughs. "You were worried about me? Have you seen yourself lately?"

"I thought Cato and Clove might have found you. They like to hunt at night."

"Clove? Which one is that?"

"The girl from District 2. She's still alive, right?"

"Yes, there's here and Cato, Thresh and Foxface. That's what I named the girl from 3." She asks me how I feel and I tell her I feel much better than the day before. "This is a much better improvement over the mud. Clean clothes and a sleeping bag…and you." She looks surprised, then shakes her head like she remembers something, though I can't figure out what's going on in her mind. I don't want to ask. I don't want to make her uncomfortable again. She reaches her hand to stroke my cheek and I grab it. "No, you're not kissing me again until you eat." She says, yanking her hand away. This is much better motivation to get me to eat than simply saying, "Shut up and eat your pears."

After some persuading, I convince her to sleep. She lies down on the sleeping bag and I'm sitting up against the rock. I push her hair behind her ear as she falls asleep. She was pissed when I let her sleep until near dark. I told her I liked watching her sleep because she didn't scowl, and then she scowled at me and made me laugh. She notices that my fever is worse. I have noticed, I just hoped she wouldn't. She forces me to drink water then rechecks my injuries. She stares at my leg with the red streaks and looks worried. She tries to comfort me by telling me that although it's inflamed, the pus is gone. "I know what blood poisoning is, Katniss." I do. And I'm actually realizing that although the last two days have been more than I could hope for, I don't kid myself. I will die. She tells me the Capitol will cure it when we win, and I agree with her to stop her worrying. She then tells me to eat more to keep my strength up.

That night, before I fall asleep, I ask her to tell me a story. She looks at me pleadingly. "No, not like that. Just a story." She decides to tell me how she got Prim's goat. "I knew that goat would be a gold mine." She says. That is _not_ why she got it, I know that, and she knows that, she just hates admitting empathy and vulnerability to the audience. "Yes, of course I was referring to that, not the lasting joy you gave your sister that you love so much you took her place in the reaping." I smile. I'm expecting a laugh, but I just get another smartass reply. Which is okay, too. This is part of the reasons I admire her so much. She feels my head again and lies by telling me I'm cooler. I know I'm not. I'm freezing again, my arms folded across my chest, my teeth chattering.

We're interrupted by Claudius Templesmith. He announces that all tributes should go to the Cornucopia at dawn. "There is something each of you desperately need. Each of you will find that something in a backpack, marked with your district number, at the cornucopia at dawn. Think hard about showing up, for some of you, this will be your last chance." That last sentence told me exactly what would be in the backpack marked with a 12. Medicine. I need it. If I can get It, I'll live. But I can't get it. Katniss is going to try and get it. Absolutely not. I'd rather die than have Katniss die and then just wait here to be killed off or die of blood poisoning.

I don't waste any time. "No. You're not risking your life for me." Of course she is upset. She doesn't like being told what to do, that's her. But I think I should have a say in this, since it's my life that hangs in the balance. Katniss is not going. Period. She tries to act all indifferent and aloof but she's a horrible liar. "Who said I was?" I stifle a laugh and she glares at me. I straighten up. "So you're not going?"

"Of course I'm not going. Give me some credit, you think I'd go for a free-for-all against Clove and Cato and Thresh? I'm not stupid." She is going.

"You're such a bad liar, Katniss, I don't know how you survived this long." If looks could kill…I start to mimic her, and at first she kind of laughs at how ridiculous I sound, but then I tell her, "never gamble at cards. You'll lose your last coin." Her face flushes pink, and she is angry now. All the better. If I piss her off enough she might just tell me to "F*ck off" and go win the games. Okay, I'm kidding myself. She may not be in love with me, but at least she cares. She would not have kissed me if she didn't care about me. "All right, I am going, and you can't stop me." Ah, I see, I can play too. "I'll follow you, I might only make it halfway to the Cornucopia, but I'll yell your name, and someone will find me. Then I'll be dead for sure." She hates losing. "You won't get a hundred yards from here on that leg." She says it more to convince herself of that, I think. "I'll drag myself. If you go, I'm going to." She bites her lip again, this time out of frustration. "What am I supposed to do? Sit here and watch you die?" I won't die, I promise, if you promise not to go." But I will die. I know this. And I don't like lying to her, but I, on the other hand, am very good at it. She makes a deal with me, I have to listen and do as she says, eat all my food, and drink all the water she gives me.

An hour later, she brings me some mashed berries and has a hopeful look on her face. "I brought you a little treat, I found a new patch of berries farther downstream." I take a bite, and the taste throws me off. Berries normally are kind of sweet, but kind of tart. This stuff is extremely sweet, I can barely taste the tart. "They're very sweet." I tell her, slightly suspicious, though I don't know why. "Yes, they're sugar berries. My mom makes jam from them, you've never had them before?

"No. But they taste familiar." I try to remember just where I'd tasted this before. I remember associating the taste with something thick, maybe a milkshake? No, it can't be. Katniss says they only grow wild. They taste just like syrup my mother used to give me when I was a child and I was sick. They make you sleep. "They're sweet as syrup." When I've said it out loud, I realize that what she gave me is exactly that: Sleep syrup. "Syrup? NO!" I try to gag myself, but she puts her hand over my mouth, and I have no choice but to swallow. I look at her one last time. She is going to try and get that medicine. How could she trick me this way? Even if it is to save my life, this is betrayal. I find myself becoming unconscious, and there is no way out of it. The last thing I remember is falling on my side, and closing my eyes.

I don't know what I've done to deserve so many second chances, but I get yet another one. I wake up in the morning, and I feel a lot better. The swelling is down, I'm no longer constantly shivering, and I don't feel nauseated. Somehow, Katniss must have got the medicine into me. Then I look around to find her passed out near the entrance to the cave. They way she is lying suggests that she didn't just decide to sleep, she fell there. I'm instantly worried, of course. I get to her as fast as I can, and roll her over. She's got a huge gash on her forehead just above her eye. Whoever or whatever injured her, if the cut had been one inch lower, on her temple, she'd be a goner. However, though she and I are both alive, neither of us are out of the woods. Katniss has lost a lot of blood as well. I can tell when I lift up her head and see a pool of blood on the ground where her head was. I muster up all my strength to pick her up, and I fold up the sleeping back into a pillow, elevating her torso, preventing any further blood loss. It's afternoon.

I want to shake her awake so that she can tell me herself to stop being a baby and that she is fine. In the end, though, I decide not to. If she is to get her strength back, she needs to sleep. Now, both of us are very badly injured. If, somehow, they find us, we're screwed. But, if she was injured by Cato or Clove, they'll likely pick off the other two tributes before coming for her. In this condition, they know she won't go looking for them. The girl that Katniss calls "Foxface" hasn't killed anyone so far, her main form of offense is just basically hiding until everyone else kills each other. Thresh could easy have caused this, but after what she did for Rue, that seems unlikely also.

I spend the next hour or so doing my best to nurse Katniss back to health. I use her first aid kit to clean her wound, then I wrap her head in a bandage. I am sure to keep her head elevated. For the first few hours, blood keeps seeping out, although slowly. I have to keep changing her bandage. Then, as darkness falls, the blood finally seems to stop. I am stroking her hair when I hear the Capitol anthem. I look through a crevice in the cave roof towards the sky. When the seal disappears, Clove's face covers the sky. Five of us left, Cato being the most dangerous. I'm not sure how Clove died, but I'm sure Cato will go after whoever killed Clove before the rest, and I'm hoping it wasn't Katniss.

The sky is bright for a moment: lightning. The thunder clap comes four seconds later. There is a thunderstorm four miles away. Katniss is low on blood, and so am I, so rain wouldn't be the best thing for us right now. I grab a piece of plastic I find and spend awhile fidgeting with it to try to wedge it between some rocks over Katniss' upper body. Finally, I am successful. I presume it must be near midnight, based on where the moon is in the sky. I'm honestly a little worried now. We're both easy pickings for Thresh, Cato, or Foxface right now, even though there are two of us. Katniss has passed out, and I'm still weak. Not to mention, my cut hasn't fully healed, and I don't think it will until we're back in the Capitol. That's _if_ by some miracle we even make it back.

For the first time in I don't know how long, I'm hungry. Very hungry. I get up and go get three pieces of the groosling that Katniss tried to force me to eat earlier, along with some raisins. It tastes incredible. It's a little old and it's cold but after not eating in a week or so, it's pretty damn good. Then I realize that since we're both weak, the food might have to last awhile. I curse myself for taking more than I needed. I hope she's not too upset about it. At least I didn't go run off on a suicide mission to heal her. Which, by the way, I'm extremely grateful for. She risked her life for me. I'm not even the least bit angry. I really wasn't angry before, just scared. How could I live with myself if she died trying to save me? No matter, she's here, and she's safe, at least for now. If we can keep the audience entertained with romance, the gamemakers won't be tempted to push one of their little sadistic buttons to kill us. I don't think Cato or the other tributes will find us here anyway.

Katniss' boots are soaking wet, and I'm a little miffed that I didn't notice it earlier. Don't need her getting sick. I take off her boots and socks, but there really isn't anywhere for them to dry quickly, since it's raining, so I just leave them on the rocks beside her. Then I tuck her feet back into the sleeping bag, and climb in with her. I'm not sleepy, but I am slightly cold and I know she is too. No sense sitting up against a rock anyway, the sleeping bag is much more comfortable.

My eyes open, and though it's still raining, it's not dark anymore. It looks to be early morning. Katniss is still sleeping. I didn't mean to fall asleep but I guess it's good that I did. My body will heal faster when sleeping. I am hungry again, but I force myself to ignore it. She needs to eat as soon as she wakes up to get her strength up, and our food is a little low. Maybe I'll eat later if I absolutely have to. I sit up, but I'm still in the sleeping bag. I start to run the back of my hand lightly over her cheek, and even though she is sleeping, a smile spreads across her face, and I know she feels comforted.

After a few minutes, the smile leaves. I'm wondering what's wrong. Is she feeling pain? Is she having a nightmare? Is she still cold? "Katniss? Katniss, can you hear me?" I tell her. Slowly, her eyes open and she notices where she is. Still in the Hunger Games, still in the cave, still wrapped in my arms. "Peeta," she says my name, then, thankfully, her frown fades, but her smile doesn't come back. "Hey, good to see your eyes again." It takes her awhile to focus. "How long was I out?"

"Not sure. I woke up yesterday evening and you were lying next to me in a very scary pool of blood. I think it's stopped finally, but I wouldn't sit up or anything." She lifts her hand up to feel her head, and she feels the bandage. I reach over and grab a bottle of water and open the cap. I put it near her mouth and she knows I want her to drink. She drinks at least three quarters of the bottle before coming up for air. "You're better," she says. "Much better. Whatever you shot in my arm did the trick. By this morning, almost all the swelling in my leg was gone."

"Did you eat?" Here it is. I hope she isn't too upset with me. "I'm sorry to say I gobbled down three pieces of that groosling before I realized it may have to last awhile. Don't worry, I'm back on a strict diet." Her face is indifferent, but she tells me, "No, it's good. You need to eat. I'll go hunting soon." Well, that won't be for awhile. Not with her head like that. "Not too soon, alright? You just let me take care of you for awhile." It feels good to say that. After her taking care of me? She was more vulnerable with me than she was alone. Yet she stayed, she nursed me back to health, and against all odds, I might live. I grab the groosling and the raisins and force her to eat.

She manages to eat one piece and a few raisins, then she finishes the bottle of water and lies her head back down completely. She turns away from me, lying on her side, her back towards me. I reach down and warm up her feet, then wrap the sleeping bag around them tightly. Desperate for conversation, I say, "Your boots and socks are still wet and the weather's not helping much." Great. I told her her shoes are wet, which she probably knows, and I told her it's raining, which she is staring at. After all that time alone for three days I couldn't find anything else to say? Really?

Thunder roars through the sky, and Katniss looks up to see the lightning coming through a crack in the ceiling of the cave. I hadn't noticed that. There's a small pool of water underneath it. Luckily, it's lower than we are, so it won't run up here. It dawns on me that the rain is probably not natural. A Gamemaker stunt? Why would they cause rain? It's not like rain will drive us together or kill anyone. Still, I'm grateful for the distraction. It gives Katniss and I a few days to get our strength up before Cato and Thresh come looking for us. "I wonder what brought on this storm. I mean, who's the target?"

"Cato and Thresh. Foxface will be in her den somewhere." That's right, I've forgotten about foxface. I don't think she'll come looking for us though. "…And clove…" She begins to tell me, before I interrupt. "I know Clove's dead. I saw her in the sky last night." Now it comes time to ask. "Did you kill her?" Oh, please say no. "No. Thresh broke her skull with a rock." I want to be happy then I realize how messed up that is. Clove is still just a kid, like the rest of us. Still, it makes it easier on us to get to Cato, when our strength is up.

"Lucky he didn't catch you too."

"He did, but he let me go." What? Why would he do that? Then she tells me. "He asked me about Rue. I told him about Marvel, about the flowers, about the song. He told me that he heard the song when he was injured and it gave him the strength to keep going. He let me go. "He let you go because he didn't want to owe you anything?" This doesn't make any sense to me. Of course, if she'd saved his life, I'd understand. But Rue? I know she was just a girl, but Cato wouldn't hesitate to kill Katniss if it had been Clove that she rescued. And Cato and Clove were much closer than Rue and Thresh. I still wonder if Cato and Clove had something romantic going on. Most likely not, but possibly.

"Yes. I don't expect you to understand it. You've always had enough. But if you'd lived in the Seam, I wouldn't have to explain." Her words cut deeper than Cato's sword did. Okay, I know I always had enough, but it didn't mean I was just coasting through life without a worry in the world. Most of my friends were from the Seam, the girl I threw the bread to five years ago is from the Seam. Would I have so desperately wanted to help her if I didn't understand? "And don't try. Obviously I'm too dim to get it."

"It's like the bread, how I never seem to get over owing you for that." I know what she is talking about, but I want to see where she is going with it so I play dumb. "The bread? What, from when we were kids? I think we can let that go. I mean, you just brought me back from the dead." It's ridiculous that I have to explain this to her. Does she really think that she didn't repay me for that bread? After saving my life? After risking her own life to get my medicine? "But you didn't know me," she tells me. "We had never spoken. Besides, it's the first gift that's always the hardest to pay back. I wouldn't have even been here to do it if you hadn't helped me then."

I know what she means. She was too weak from starvation to go hunt. If she didn't get the bread, she wouldn't have been able to hunt. If she didn't hunt, she wouldn't have gotten better. She wouldn't have been able to feed her family, she wouldn't have been able to last this long in the games. Still, the look in her eyes when she picked up the loaves was enough for me. Seeing her doing well, seeing her gain weight back, and seeing her back in school, those were all pluses. She says then, "Why did you anyway?" Why did I what? Why did I help her? She has to know that. Isn't it obvious? Does she still think I'm doing this for the cameras? I'm not. None of this was for the cameras.

"Why? You know why…" She shakes her head. She really thinks this has all been just an act. "Haymitch said you would take a lot of convincing."

"Haymitch? What's he got to do with it?" I am a little bothered by this. She really doesn't see it. I think of just telling her right then and there, just coming out with it, and if I was still dying, I may have. But, now that I've got time, I want her to figure it out herself. "Nothing. So Cato and Thresh huh? I guess it's too much to hope that they'll simultaneously destroy each other?" I obviously must have said something wrong, because she's on guard again. "I think we would like Thresh, I think he would be our friend back in District 12." Okay, but we aren't_ in _District 12. We are in the Hunger Games, and regardless of our feelings for any of the tributes, if they live, we die. Does she think Thresh won't hesitate to slaughter her if he comes across her again? Of course he won't. It doesn't matter if he's a good guy, which, I'm sure he is. But he has family to get back to also. And he's eighteen, so he probably has a girlfriend or a wife back in District 11. "Then let's hope Cato kills him, so we don't have to." I mean this. I don't want to kill Thresh. I didn't want to kill the District 8 girl, although by doing so I put her out of her misery. I don't even _want_ to kill Cato, but I will, if I have to.

Katniss looks upset. At first, I figure she's in pain. "What's wrong? Are you in a lot of pain? "I want to go home, Peeta." Oh, wow. Is this happening? She told _me_ she wants to go home. This ignites something in me. It makes me want to hug her and tell her I'll make sure she gets home. But I can't. I can't promise her that I'll get her home. All I can do is try. Still, maybe she just needs to believe it. "You will. I promise." I lean down to kiss her. "I want to go home now," she says, letting a tear fall. She feels broken. All this time, she had to look a certain way and act a certain way so people won't mistake her as weak. Now, she's finally giving in to the pain she feels, and I am glad for it. She can't keep that bottled up inside, and she needs someone to confide in, and I am here, I always will be here. But, I don't like seeing her cry. "Tell you what, you go back to sleep and dream of home, and you'll be there for real before you know it. Okay?" She dries her eyes. "Okay. Wake me if you need me to keep watch."

"I'm good and rested, thanks to you and Haymitch. Besides, who knows how long this will last?" I say, meaning the rain.

Hours go by, and I allow myself to eat ten raisins. That's enough to at least keep the Hunger pains away. In the time I've got to myself, I notice why the Capitol refers to this as the Hunger Games. Whoever wins will never go hungry again. Tributes have to sign up for tessarae to feed their hungry families, putting them more at risk of being reaped. It's cruel, and it's sick. If it's possible, I hate the Capitol even more now. Only they could try to put a positive spin on starving, overworked citizens. I wonder for awhile what the countries that were here before were like. We learn things in history books, but the books are biased. The Capitol has to approve all school textbooks before we get them. So, though the facts are probably true, what the Capitol's textbooks say about the facts will most certainly be biased. Panem is made up of three prior countries. Northern Panem used to be called "Canada." Central Panem used to be called "The United States," or, when other countries referred to it, "America." Southern Panem was known as "Mexico". Most of what Canada and Mexico was is underwater now. District 7 lies half in northern Panem, half in central. Southern Panem has District 4 and District 8, while Central Panem has the rest.

Panem was born 100 years ago. Apparently, there were two wars that involved the entire world 200 years ago. Then by the time the whole world got involved in their third conflict, a few of the countries had weapons so advanced they could level the countries, putting a lot of countries, and parts of others, underwater. Then, the nuclear power from the weapons messed with the delicate balance of things, causing hurricanes, floods, tsunamis, tornadoes, and other natural disasters, killing many people, all over the world. Out of these ashes, new countries rebuilt. We don't learn about countries outside of Panem, though. President Snow doesn't allow it, though the Capitol assures us that we are safe. Who knows if that's true or not.

The central part of Panem, that used to be the United States, had a very different way of living than we do. History books don't really tell us about it, but my dad's grandfather used to tell him stories of the world before. Most people had more than they needed, other people still got by, but the amount of starved citizens was extremely low. The didn't have a dictatorial president like Snow, either. They had three separate branches of government, so that one of them couldn't get too powerful. Citizens of the country got to choose who led them, which is something I can only dream about. If we had that option, Snow wouldn't be in the Capitol right now. But perhaps the best story I'd heard, passed down from my great grandfather, was that the citizens were free. They could go anywhere they wanted in the country. They could even _leave_ the country and explore different parts of the world. They could say whatever they wanted to about their government and not be killed, or even arrested.

My mind gets away from me and I realize how much time has gone by. It's evening now. The sun is beginning to set. I decide I should wake up Katniss so she can eat more, and, okay, I'm pretty hungry too. When she opens her eyes, she notices that the rain has turned into a downpour, it's much stronger than before. I don't know about her, but I kind of enjoy the sound. I notice it then, to, and decide to put the pot that held the broth under that crevice in the ceiling. Katniss sits up. I don't want her head to bleed again, but she can't really eat lying on her back, and she really needs to eat more than she did earlier to be able to heal. It occurs to me that I don't know how she got the head wound, but I decide to wait and see if she tells me herself.

"Should we try to ration it?" I tell her, looking at the scarce amount we've got left. "No, let's just finish it. The groosling's getting old anway, and the last thing we need is to get sick off spoiled food." She splits the remains into two equal piles. I do my best to eat slowly and fill up faster, but since I've been able to eat, my body has been craving food constantly to make up for what was lost. "Tomorrow is a hunting day," she tells me. I really don't know how she can see straight with that head wound, but I don't argue. "I won't be much help with that, I've never hunted before." Of course, this comes as no surprise to her. "I'll kill and you cook." I feel a little demasculated. Shouldn't it be the other way around? Oh well. Who am I kidding? I'm no hunter, I am a baker's son. "And you can always gather." That's true. At least I can go and get some berries and stuff. "I wish there was some sort of bread bush out there," I'm trying to joke, but bread sounds so good I hate myself for even saying the word. Katniss makes it worse when she tells me the bread she got from District 11 was still warm. My mouth waters. Warm bread would be a godsend right now.

Katniss and I chew a few mint leaves. It doesn't keep the hunger at bay, but it gives our mouths something to do so we don't think about it. It's not the first thing that came to mind when she told me it would keep our mouths busy, but it will do. I strain my eyes to look into the watery hole in the ceiling when the anthem begins to play. I am desperately hoping that the sky will show Thresh and Cato, but no faces come up. There hasn't been any action in awhile, romantic or gruesome, so I am afraid that tomorrow, the game makers will alter that.


	11. The Kill

Katniss looks like she may be wondering the same thing that I am. "Where did Thresh go? I mean, what's on the far side of the circle?" She asks me. Wheat/grain/grass.

"A field. As far as you can see it's full of grasses as high as my shoulders. I don't know, maybe some of them are grain. There are patches of different colors, but no paths."

"I bet some of them are grain. I bet Thresh knows which ones, too." Well, Kyra told me which ones, but I decide not to bring that up, not sure why. "Did you go in there?" She asks me. I did, but not far. Just as we got into the field the fire began. "No. Nobody really wanted to track down Thresh in the grass. It has a sinister feeling to it." It does, too. Not knowing what's around you? It's very frightening. "Everytime I look at that field, all I can think of are hidden things. Snakes, and rabid animals, and quicksand." Okay, so I didn't_ technically _run into any of these things when we were there before, but, we also didn't get very far. Who's to say those things aren't in there? "There could be anything in there," I add on.

"Maybe there is a bread bush in that field. Maybe that's why Thresh looks better fed now than when we started the games."

"Either that or he's got very generous sponsors. I wonder what we'd have to do to get Haymitch to send us some bread." She raises her eyebrows and looks the other direction. I see a small smirk cross her face and realize she either knows and isn't telling me, or she has an idea. I sure hope so. I'd kill for bread right now. Actually, those are probably the wrong words to use right now considering where we are.

Katniss grabs my hand. "Well, he probably used up a lot of resources helping me knock you out." She does have a mischievous grin, and I'm wondering what's going on in her head. I remember the sweet tasting sleep syrup. That stuff is pretty expensive, this late in the games. "Yeah, about that, don't try something like that again."

"Or what?"

"Or…or…" Damnit! I wasn't expecting the "or what?" I look away, embarrassed, and say, "Just give me a minute." She grins again. "What's the problem?" The problem? The problem is that I was wrong. The problem is that the reason we are both still alive was because she drugged me even though I put up a fight about it. The problem is that she's known what she was doing all along in these games and I've pretty much just skated by on luck and lies.

"The problem is that we're both still alive. Which only reinforces the idea in your head that you did the right thing." Uh oh, now she's pissed. I've done it now.

"I did do the right thing!" Here we go… Maybe I wouldn't be alive if it weren't for her, that part is true. But, still, I'm still a huge liability on her part. Maybe, if I had died, the anger she'd have had would have been enough to take all three of the remaining tributes out. Just maybe, if I'd have died, she'd already be on her way back to District 12. Back to her family, back to Gale. But that's not why I'm mad. I'm actually not mad at all, I'm just frustrated that she had to risk her life to save me, when I'm just a burden now. "No! Just don't, Katniss." My grip tightens without me meaning it to, and she yanks her hand away. She wets her lips before opening her mouth to what I can only assume, is yell at me, but I interrupt her.

"Don't die for me, you won't be doing my any favors, alright?" She steps back. Is she startled by me? I didn't mean to frighten her or come off as a jerk but that's the vibe I'm getting from her now: heat. "Maybe I did it for myself, Peeta. Did you think of that?" Well, no. I didn't. "Maybe you aren't the only one who…who worries about…what it would be like if…."

She struggles to carry on this argument, and I think I realize what she is saying. I wasn't complaining when she was acting affectionate with me or kissing me, but something told me it's because we are the "star-crossed lovers." But now? It seems like that wasn't entirely it. My frustration completely dissipates. "If what, Katniss?" I say, as softly as I know how to.

I need her to tell me, I need to hear it. I can't figure her out, I never could. It kills me that I don't know what she is thinking.

"That's exactly the kind of topic Haymitch told me to steer clear of." Of course, Haymitch. It doesn't surprise me in the least that he tells her to keep her guard up, to keep quiet, to act like nothing can break her, all the while he is telling me the complete opposite. I make a mental note to punch his lousy drunk self in the face if I get out of here. But I'm kidding myself, I don't think I'd be capable of that, even if he is a drunkard.

"Well, then I guess I'll have to fill in the blanks myself." I am about to go take a walk, short as it may be, to clear my head, to get the thoughts and the feelings out of the way so that we can focus on winning these games. But then I can't. She is looking at me again. In the way she did before. She's looking directly at me. Her eyes are staring so deep into mine that I'm afraid she can see right through me, like she knows everything about me, and it's incredible, it's comforting. If I can't know her, then I want her to know me.

I don't want to be afraid anymore, life is too short. Her eyelashes finally come down, but when they rise again, the same look is cutting right through me. Without thinking, I take a step forward. Then another, then another after that. I instinctively put my arms around her waist, and she backs up, just a little bit. Force of habit, I assume, but then I put my lips on hers, and at first, she is still. Then, in less than a second, she moves into me, closer to me. We're now chest to chest, nose to nose, mouth to mouth.

I realize that this is the first kiss we've had where we have both been completely conscious, and completely aware of what we are doing. And in this moment, I'm happier than I have ever been, regardless of dangerous situation that we're in, somehow, that makes it even better. The electricity returns. It starts in my hands, where they are against the small of her back. The electricity runs then from my hands, to my arms, down to every last nerve in my body, being strongest in my lips. I start to wonder if maybe this is what people are talking about when they refer to "sparks". I remember my brother Riley telling me he didn't think that any "sparks flew" between my mother and father, all these years. Is that possible? All I can think is that I'm hoping Katniss is feeling the same thing I am right now.

It's intense, and I don't want to stop, ever. Her hands are on my shoulders, and I move mine up from her back, into her hair, but then I feel it. The heel of my hand brushed briefly across her forehead, and I felt the dampness of her bandage. She was bleeding again. As much as I wanted to keep going-who knows when or if this will ever happen again- I have to stop. I don't want her to lose any more blood. I withdraw and move my head back. Her eyes are still closed, she expects me to kiss her again, and it takes everything I have not to. Instead, I just softly caress her hands, and kiss the tip of her nose lightly. She opens her eyes to ask why I've stopped. Then I tell her, "I think your wound is bleeding again." She needs to lie down. I get into the sleeping back, lying on my right side, facing away from the rock. I pat the side of the bag next to me. "Come on, it's bedtime anyway."

I don't think she wants to sleep, though. She insists that I put my jacket on, and she pulls on her socks. She tells me that she'll take the first watch, but I say no. "Katniss, look at the weather, no one will come looking for us in this. Besides, you're cold. Come here." I motion again to the sleeping bag. She climbs in the bag, and lies on her left side, facing me. I pull her head down, so that her head is resting on my right arm. I pull her closer and then put my left arm over her, keeping her close to me. Once I feel her stop shivering, I close my eyes to sleep.

It was a dreamless sleep, but it was the best sleep I've gotten since I've been here. So when she shakes me awake about three and a half hours later, I feel fine to stay up so she can rest. Before closing her eyes for the remainder of the night, she tells me, "Tomorrow, when it's dry, I'll find us a place so high in the trees we can both sleep in peace." My arm holding her feels her side rise and fall slower and slower, then I know that she is sleeping.

There isn't anything going on in the weather we're having. I simply lean my head back and watch the rain fall outside of the cave. It's beautiful. Everyone in District 12 hates this weather-especially Katniss and Gale- because they can't hunt. On these days, the Hob is closed because it's outdoors obviously. Mine workers still have to work but it's always a bad day for them because it's a long walk to the mines and by the time they get there they're soaking wet. Then the mines are cold, so a lot of mine workers get sick. My mom and brother Jacob hates the rain because business is slow. Riley hates it because he's stuck inside all day. I think my dad and I are the only ones who enjoy it. My dad will usually sit in a chair by the window and read a book while listening to the pitter patter on the roof.

On rainy days I like to put on a heavy jacket and walk through town. I have my hood on, but I don't carry an umbrella. There is something peaceful about the rain-especially the summer rain. I can't pinpoint exactly what it is, maybe it's the smell or maybe it's the way the town looks after it's gone. As I look down at Katniss now, I realize what it is. All of my good memories have always happened in the rain. The first day of school, the day when we were five, it was raining outside. When she sang when we were nine it was raining outside. When Riley and I were younger, since he was stuck in the house, he'd play with me. Sometimes I'd read with my dad next to the window with the water rolling down it. Even my mother was surprisingly calm on those days. Then, the day I threw Katniss the bread, it was raining, and now, with our first real kiss-not delusional one- it is raining.

I may have dozed off for a few minutes here and there, but before I know it, it's morning. Katniss wakes up and grimaces and sighs when she sees that it's still raining. "Ugh." She says, laying her head back down on my arm. "It's okay, Katniss. I can go out and gather anyway." I would like her to go with me, but not only does she not want to, I don't want the bandage to get wet. Still, I offer to go. My stomach growls, and her stomach then syncs up with mine. "Are you sure? I don't mind…"

"Even then, you wouldn't be able to see three feet in front of you, and we know you don't need to get sick. That's the last thing we need." I look out at the forest with the rain making everything glisten. I long to be out in it, but I know she is right. I have gotten sick countless times because of my habit of walking in the rain. So, we both get out of the sleeping bag and lean against the rocks. I unzip the sleeping bag so it's more of a blanket, then I pull her close to me and I drape it over us to keep us warm.

It bothers me that Haymitch hasn't sent us anything. All day we've been sitting here slightly cold even with the sleeping bag, and no food. We're both very hungry. I have to wonder if there was something that Katniss did that made him send her stuff. She gets on his nerves, and I know she is right when she says he likes me better but I can't understand why he has sent her everything she needed and left me to die. Maybe because that's what I planned to do anyway? I don't know, but he could have at least sent something to make it easier, like heavy painkillers.

Time passes and it's evening. All we did all day was pretty much just take turns napping. It helps keep the hunger at bay. Sometimes we'd chew mint leaves, but after the first few, I declined any more, as it just made me want to eat instead of distract me. "Peeta," Katniss says, barely above a whisper. "You said at the interview you had a crush on me forever. When did forever start?" I don't cringe at this subject, and I'm glad for something to talk about. We'd talked today, of course, but nothing real personal. Any change to grow closer to Katniss I'll take.

"Well, let's see. I guess the first day of school. We were five. You had on a red plaid dress and your hair…it was in two braids instead of one. My father pointed you out when we were waiting to line up." Katniss seems surprised by how much I remember. I remember every detail about that first day.

"Your father? Why?"

"He said, see that little girl? I wanted to marry her mother, but she ran off with a coal miner."

"What? You're making that up!" She tells me.

"No, true story." I can only imagine what is going on at my house right now. If we're on camera right now, which, I'm sure we are, and watching is mandatory, my brothers and mother just heard this. Then I remember my mother probably saw everything: The interview where I admitted it, the protecting her, the kiss, the _second,_ much more real kiss, and now this story. She must be pissed. It kind of half brings a smile to my face. This is my life, and my choice. My mother is a bad person for looking down on people from the Seam, and though, yes, I still love her, I mean, she's my mother-I hope this makes her think twice about taking her luck for granted. She could have very easily married a man from the Seam, or she could have easily been born into a Seam family.

I do feel bad, though. My father told me this in confidence, and while he didn't tell me not to say anything, I'm sure he didn't want my mother knowing. And my brothers, well, they'd tell her. Jacob might not, as he really doesn't care about anything, but he wouldn't try hard to keep it a secret either. Riley seems to crave drama, or action, and he'd tell her for sure. I'm sure my dad understands. He would have told Katniss' mom everything if he was in this situation with her twenty years ago. I hope he is proud of me for the choices I've made so far. I get back to my story.

"And I said, 'a coal miner? Why did she want a coal miner when she could have had you?' And he said, "Because when he sings, even the birds stop to listen.'" That's when I realize why Katniss' voice is so hypnotic- he said the same thing about her mother. Her mother and father were both harmonious singers. "That's true" Katniss begins, "They do. I mean, they did."

"So that day, in music assembly, the teacher asked who knew the valley song. Your hand shot right up in the air. She stood you up on a stool and had you sing for us. And I swear, every bird outside the window fell silent."

"Oh, please." She says.

"No, it happened. And a few years later, the same thing happened. And I knew, right there, that just like your mother, I was a goner." I gulp. This next part it what I'm actually going to struggle with. "Then for the next eleven years, I tried to work up the nerve to talk to you."

"Without success." Yeah, unfortunately. "Without success," I agree, "So, in a way, my name being drawn in the reaping was a real piece of luck." Katniss looks me over, very carefully. She looks like she is trying to read me, but I've been so honest, what could she possibly be trying to see?

Finally, she says, "You have a…remarkable memory." Not with most things, but with her, yes. She is giving me the look again, the one where she stares into my eyes. "I remember everything about you," I say, tucking her hair behind her ear. I stare back into her eyes to keep the eye contact, and I smile. "You're the one who wasn't paying attention." And she wasn't, but, not that I could blame her. I know she had other things to worry about, but I'm glad she sees it now, sees _me._ I expect her to stay silent and just preserve the moment, but I still can't quite figure her out. She tells me, "I am now." That completely threw me off guard. Though, I'm ecstatic to hear it.

I try to joke, and it actually benefits me for once. "Well, I don't have much competition here." I say, motioning to the situation we're in. She looks me in the eyes again. "You don't have much competition anywhere." My heart jumps, and seems to just get stuck wherever it's jumped to. This time, _she_ kisses _me _and I realize, if I died right here and now I'd have a smile on my face. Of course, as soon as her lips touch mine, the electricity returns- the kind that makes my heart stop, the kind I'm completely addicted to. But we don't stay liplocked for long, as Haymitch has finally sent us something. Well, about time.

I pick up the basket, and realize Katniss has her arrow drawn and pointed at the pot, like it scared her. "Don't worry," I say, "I'll share." She manages a small laugh and shakes her head while putting her arrow away. "I'm sorry," She says, with the biggest smile on her face. "I'm a little on edge."

"That's okay, so am I. Look where we are. But I am glad you're here with me." She says nothing but smiles and I knew she is happy too.

I give the basket to Katniss to do the honors. She rips off the top, and inside, there's a feast fit for a plump Capitol citizen. Our eyes widen and our mouths water at the sight and smell of it. There's everything: Cheese, bread, fruit, and the lamb stew that Katniss likes so much. I get back under the sleeping bag, and tell her, "I guess Haymitch finally got tired of watching us starve."

"I guess so."

Katniss immediately goes for the stew, no surprise to me, but after awhile I have to slow her down. "We'd better take it slow on that stew. Remember the first night on the train? The rich food made me sick and I wasn't even starving then." Which is true, I don't want her body to reject it, she needs it. She stops. "You're right. And I could just inhale the whole thing!" I give her a roll and half the apple, plus a little stew and rice. I serve myself the same amount, and we try to go as slow as possible with it. She looks at the basket when she's done. "I want more." So do I, but then, there is still the risk of us throwing it up. We can't afford to do that, every morsel counts. "Me too. Tell you what. We wait an hour, if it stays down, then we get another serving." She nods her head. "Agreed. It's going to be a long hour."

"Maybe not that long," I tell her, we just have to keep distracted and that hour will fly by. "What was that thing you were saying before the food arrived…something about me…no competition…best thing that ever happened to you." Okay, so I want to hear it again, you can't blame me. "I don't remember that last part…" she says. So she catches it, but she blushes, which is good enough for me. "Oh, that's right, that's what _I _was thinking." I really am hoping I'm not pushing my luck here, but what the hell, I'm in the best mood as of late. I tell her to scoot over because I'm cold, and she does. I pull the blanket up some more.

"So, when you were five, you never noticed any other girls?" She asks me. Honestly, yeah, a lot. But none were Katniss. "No, I noticed just about every girl, but the only one that made a lasting impression on me was you."

"I'm sure that would thrill your parents, you liking a girl from the Seam." Actually, my dad would probably prefer me marry a girl from the Seam, especially if it's Katniss. My mother, not so much. She'd have an embolism, figuratively, of course.

"Hardly, but I couldn't care less. Anyway, if we make it back, you won't be a girl from the seam, you'll be a girl from the Victor's Village." I actually think about this one. Would my mother approve then? Probably not. She would probably want me to marry a girl that was born into a rich or at least steady family. Still, the look on her face…classic. It would be hysterical for Katniss and I to have houses there bigger than hers. That would piss her off to no end.

"But then our only neighbor will by Haymitch!" Yes, I hadn't thought of that. It does disturb me, but though he's kind of a jerk and a drunkard, I know he looks out for her. Maybe he looks out for me too. And if I ever needed liquor, which I probably wouldn't, he'd be the guy to go to.

"Ah, that'll be nice," I say, sarcastically. "You and me and Haymitch. Very cozy. Picnics, birthdays, long winter nights around the fire retelling old Hunger Games tales."

"I told you, he hates me!"

"Only sometimes, when he's sober, I've never heard him say one negative thing about you."

"He's _never_ sober." Okay, good point. But he doesn't hate her. I think he comes off that way because she's one of the only people he actually has respect for. Actually, probably the _only _person he has any speck of respect for. Surely not me. "That's right," I say, "Who am I thinking of? Oh, I know. It's Cinna who likes you. But that's mainly because you didn't try to run when he set you on fire, on the other hand, Haymitch, well, if I were you, I'd avoid Haymitch completely, he hates you." I say all of this sarcastically, but I don't think she catches it.

"I thought you said I was his favorite."

"He hates me more. I just don't think people in general is his sort of thing." Right. His sort of thing is a clear bottle of clear liquor. If it was legal to marry Vodka he'd be a happy man. I really do hope Haymitch is listening to all of this. It brings a smile to my face. Serves him right for completely ignoring me in the arena when I was dying for another person to live. He sure as hell wouldn't do something like that. "How do you think he did it?" She asks me. "Who? Did what?"

"Haymitch. How do you think he won the games?"

Well, I _want_ to say that he just climbed up a tree and drunk himself into a week long stupor and was the only one left alive when he woke up. But, you can't have alcohol in the arena, and I'm sure Haymitch wasn't _always_ an alcoholic. Still, I never thought about how Haymitch won his games. It is very intriguing to me. Then I figure it out. Haymitch, drunk asshole that he is, is still a very smart guy. "He outsmarted the others." She nods, and then we don't say anything for awhile, but I get a sympathetic look on her face, like she feels sorry for Haymitch. I guess it _does _suck narrowly surviving this traumatic event. Then, having to watch tributes from your district die on live tv, while under your direction? These tributes might have been people he'd gone to school with. They may have been neighbors at one time, he may have just seen them walking by. I don't know how I'd deal with that, and a heavy weight comes down on my shoulders now that I realize that that is _exactly _what Katniss and I will be doing, _if_ we even make it out of here.

It hasn't been a whole hour, but Katniss doesn't look sick at all so I don't stop her when she goes for more food. She looks at me and I get what she wants to ask, I nod, and she begins to serve each of us some stew. While she's doing that, the anthem plays and my eyes look to the sky. The stars are now covered with the Capitol seal. I see Thresh's picture in the sky, and I don't really know how to feel. It's one less, not to mention, big, person we'll have to defeat to leave here. But Thresh? I really wish Cato had gone first, and I feel like an insensitive Capitol person for thinking it, but it's true. Thresh just wanted the same thing I want. The same thing we all want: to go home. Katniss is saying something but I interrupt. "Katniss?" When she finally looks at me I tell her that Thresh is now gone. She looks like she doesn't know how to feel either. Then she is confused because we didn't hear a cannon. "We must have missed it. Maybe it fired during the thunderstorm." She pushes me aside to get a glimpse herself, and then she slumps against the rock, staring into nothing. "You okay?"

Okay, so I hate when people ask me if I'm okay when I'm so clearly not. But, I had to say something, and that's all that came out. It takes her awhile to compose herself. "It's just…if we didn't win, I wanted Thresh to. Because of what he did, and because of Rue."

"Yeah, I know." And then I try to comfort her. "But this means we're one step closer to going home." I pass a plate of food to her and tell her to eat.

"It also means that Cato will be back to hunting us." She says. There is still the girl Katniss calls Foxface, but I don't think she is much of a threat. Cato will definitely be coming after us now. I'm sure he knows that I am weak, and he probably thinks all he'll have to do is face off Katniss. But, there's our advantage. I'm much stronger now. Not like I was, no way, but strong enough to at least put up a somewhat decent fight.

"And he's got supplies again."

"He'll be wounded, I bet." She says.

"What makes you say that?" I wonder.

"Because Thresh never would have gone down without a fight. He's strong, I mean, he was, and they were in his territory." She says _they _like it could have been Foxface, I know Cato is ruthless, I know Cato killed Thresh. And, as bad as it sounds, I hope Cato kills Foxface. It won't be as hard for us to kill Cato as it would be for us to kill Foxface. She has a point though. I hope Cato is severely wounded. Maybe we can actually go and seek him out.

"Good, the more wounded Cato is the better. I wonder how Foxface is making out?"

"Oh, she's fine. It will probably be easier to catch Cato than her."

"Maybe they'll catch each other and we can just go home." I can wish.

"But we better be extra careful with the watches. I may have dozed off a few times." I admit. "Me too. But not tonight."

I tell her I'll watch first. I turn the blanket back into a sleeping bag and she slips inside. I slip down with her until she falls asleep. While I'm lying there, she is facing me, and her eyes are shut, but she is mouthing something. No words are coming, but she is saying something. Then I watch her chest rise and fall, and when she's asleep, I get up. Time goes by, and every now and then I'd get up and walk around to keep myself from falling asleep against the rock. I get hungry, so after a few hours, I eat. I get half a roll and spread some cheese on it and top it with some apple slices.

After I feel like I just can't keep my eyes open anymore, I wake her up and hand her her half of the food. She seems to enjoy the concoction I've made using the bread, apple, and cheese. "We have a goat cheese and apple tart at the bakery." I tell her. "Bet that's expensive." It is, not even we can eat that, unless it's extremely old, but by then, it's no good. I tell her, "Too expensive for my family to eat. Unless it's gone very stale. Of course, nearly everything we eat is stale." This seems to surprise her. It makes me wonder what kind of life she thinks I had?

She accidentally hits me in the shoulder when she moves, and I wake up. When I open my eyes, her hair is in her face, and she has a guilty look on her face like she feels bad for waking me up. So I pull her down to kiss her. I swear, everytime we kiss, it's nostalgic. The electricity returns and takes over me everytime, but it still doesn't become routine or boring, or anything of the sort. Each time, I feel even more alive than I did before. It's like it heals me. She is the first to pull away. "We're wasting hunting time." I wish it would've lasted longer, but I remind myself there are plenty of opportunities in the future if we can _just_ make it out of here, so I get up and prepare myself to do exactly as she tells me and fight to take us home.

We eat before we leave. I'm surprised to say the least when she divides the remainder of our food, but she tells me we'll earn it all back today. I know she's an incredible hunter, but still, I'm glad she finally notices just how good she is for herself. We poke some fun at Effie with our lack of manners, and it's our genuine way of telling her we miss her. Sure, she's the one who drew our names and sent us to our deaths, but I tend to like Effie slightly more than the Capitol citizens who watch us, and the Capitol leaders, and the gamemakers. Effie grew up on this, and while it's no excuse, she doesn't really see it as wrong, because she was raised that way. Just before we leave, I flirt with her some more and steal one more kiss before we leave the cave to hunt.

I tell her that I am afraid that Cato will be hunting us now, and that we should be careful. Then, we replenish our water and Katniss checks snares, and we come up empty. She tells me we should go to her old hunting ground and I tell her I'll do whatever she asks of me. She seems to appreciate this.

I follow her for awhile, listening and watching like she told me to, but then she whips around to face me so fast it startles me a little bit. "What?"

"You've got to move more quietly." She tells me. I hadn't noticed I was being loud, and she tells me I'll chase off everything we can eat. I tell her I'm sorry, and then I try to walk more quietly, but my leg is killing me, and I'm not sure how much longer I can walk. She turns around after about five minutes, obviously frustrated. "Can you take your boots off?" She asks me. I don't want to walk barefoot through thick terrain like this. "Here?"

"Yes, I will too. That way we'll both be quieter." I can't help but think of Gale. I'm sure he's laughing at the screen right now. Gale is bigger than me, with weight and height, yet, somehow he can tread just as light as Katniss can. He had to, it was survival for him and his family. I wish I could do that for her. I wish I could have been the one to hunt with her and help her, but I was afraid.

When we stop to rest, I suggest I go off alone, I know by the fact that we haven't had any luck that I'm being too loud, even with my boots off. She doesn't really feel okay with me going off alone because of my injured leg and Cato. So I just laugh to fool her into thinking that I'm not afraid of Cato. Truth is, I'm very afraid of Cato. But not so afraid that I'd run away if I faced him. I'd go down making sure he is as weak as possible so that Katniss can pick him off like he's just a rabbit, not a six foot killer. I tell her that I've handled him before, but it isn't a great argument since I was dying in the aftermath of my confrontation with him. She gives me a look.

Eventually, I get her to let me go off, though not too far, and gather anything I can find to eat. I leave a backpack on the ground outside the forest in the clearing by the stream. I tell her I'll meet her back here, and she agrees. In the forest, I dig up some roots like she told me too, but then on the way back, I see them. Little dark purple berries just right there in front of my face. I go up and look at them. They look incredibly juicy, and incredibly tasty, and I pick one off to pop it in my mouth. Unfortunately, my clumsiness gets the best of me and I drop it. I kick it away with my foot and decide it's better that way because I really shouldn't eat without Katniss anyway. So instead, I just gather as many as I can hold and walk back to the clearing.

I'm close to it when she calls my name frantically. I run. Immediately I think she's in trouble. So regardless of the excruciating pain I'm in, I run towards the voice. When I see her, I run past some bushes and she launches an arrow. She must have seen me at the last minute, because an arrow whirs right by me and gets stuck in a tree. By reflex, I fling the berries in the air and jump to my left away from the arrow. She stomps over to me. Of course, she almost shot me and she's still the one that's mad. "What are you doing? You're supposed to be here, not running around in the woods!"

"I found some berries," I try to say as innocently as I can.

"I whistled, why didn't you whistle back?" Oh yes, this was our agreement for her to keep in touch with me. "I didn't hear."

"I thought Cato killed you!" Now I realize her anger was just covering up her fear… of losing me. I grab her and hold onto her in a tight embrace. "Katniss?"

She pushes away from me. "If two people agree on a signal, they stay in range. Alright?" Alright, geez. "All right!" I say, a little patronized.

"All right! Because that's what happened with Rue, and I watched her die!"

Katniss is now on the verge of tears. She turns away from me before I have a chance to comfort her, and she looks at our food basket. Then, of course, she accuses me of eating without her. "What? No I didn't!" I _could _have eaten without her, but I chose not to after dropping that berry. I should have just ate it. "Oh, and I suppose the apples ate the cheese." I notice that the cheese is gone. "I don't know what ate the cheese." Honestly, it was probably a rabbit or something. "I've been down collecting berries, would you care for some?" I ask her. Then, as she is about to take one, her eyes grow wide. Before I can ask why, a cannon fires. Please be Cato. Please be Cato. Please be Cato. I turn the way she does, and we see a hovercraft lift Foxface's lifeless body out of the arena. Cato killed her.

Immediately, I push Katniss into a tree, she hits it kinda hard, which I feel bad for, and she gives me a look as if to say, "OW! What the hell?" I tell her to climb. Who knows how close Cato is now. Foxface was only about a hundred yards away. He is coming to kill us now. She has no urgency, and I can't figure why. "No, Peeta, she's your kill, not Cato's." What? All I did was go and collect berries. That's all she'd_ let_ me do. There's no way… "What? I haven't even seen her since the first day. How could I have killed her?" Katniss holds out the berries to answer my question.


	12. The Final Battle

"Foxface is smart. She's been one of the best in these games. She doesn't just hide, Peeta, she plans. The boy from 3 set up mines around the food source, which I'm sure you know, and she watched you all carefully to navigate it, and shortly before I blew up the supply, I saw her get through and take food."

"So she saw the berries and ate them, thinking they were safe because we were going to eat them." She nods. I feel…bad. This is the only person I've actually really killed. The girl from 8 was going to die anyway. But I _killed_ foxface. The only thing that makes me feel even slightly better is the fact that it wasn't a violent, painful death. If Cato had gotten to her it would have been. But now, Cato will be on our tail. "I wonder how she found us. My fault I guess, if I'm as loud as you say I am." I tell her, shamefully. "And she's very clever Peeta, until you outfoxed her."

I tell her she saved us in a way, because if she didn't eat the berries first we would have, but I can tell in her face that isn't it. "No we wouldn't. You recognize these, don't you?"

"We call them nightlock." She tells me. Of course she knew. Again, I feel inferior. "Even the name sounds deadly. I'm sorry, Katniss."

"Don't apologize. It just means we're one step closer to District 12." True. I didn't think about that. All that's left is Cato. We may actually win. "I'll get rid of the rest," I tell her. Then she tells me to wait, and puts them in a sack that I recognized. It was Marvel's. She puts in on the ground and tells me that if Cato comes across these, and eats them, that's it.

"Let's make a fire, right now." A fire will draw him in, for sure.  
>"Are you ready to face him?" I ask her.<p>

"I'm ready to eat. Better to cook our food while we have the chance. If he knows we're here, he knows. But he also knows there's two of us and probably assumes we were hunting Foxface. That means you're recovered. And the fire means we're not hiding, we're inviting him here. Would you show up?" She makes a few good points. No, I wouldn't show up. No way. That would be suicide in my eyes. Katniss shouldn't kid herself, she is just as clever, or actually, probably more clever, than Foxface is. Or was. "Maybe not."

She hunts and I gather a little more, and we cook, and we eat, and we tell stories, and we laugh, and Cato doesn't show up. Just as she said. But when it begins to get dark, Katniss wants to go up a tree. There isn't any way I can do that with my leg the way it is. I beg her to just go back to the cave. I know it's far, but I just can't climb, and it seems like the only option. At first, she's slightly aggravated, and I don't blame her. I've slowed her down enough today as it is. But then I think maybe she feels bad because she stands on her toes to kiss me and tells me we can go back to the cave.

I stack more wood in the fire to confuse Cato, and then we start walking. I feel kind of useless since Katniss keeps her bow loaded, but she tells me the most helpful thing I can do is walk in the now very shallow stream, and keep a watchful eye on the edge of the forest. He is in there somewhere. I feel bad for asking her to walk back, since by the time we finally get there, we're both exhausted. But we sit down and eat some more. I guess my body is still weak, because I'm more drained than I should be. I only eat about half, then doze off. Katniss tells me to just go ahead and get into the bag, so I do, and I shut my eyes. Katniss leans down and kisses my forehead, bringing a smile to my face as I drift off.

It's a little to easy to wake up when Katniss shakes me. When I open my eyes, I realize why. The sun is beginning to rise. "I slept all night? That's not fair, Katniss. You should have woken me." She seems uninterested in small chit chat. She gets in the bag, yawns, and tells me to wake her if anything interesting happens. I'm praying nothing interesting happens.

As the hours go by, I'm becoming increasingly alarmed at the fact that nothing is going on. I know Cato. He's not as smart as Katniss, but just as stealthy. I wouldn't be able to hear him coming, and that bothers me. My only saving grace is that he is horrible at camouflage. So I poke my head up every thirty minutes or so and scan the forest for any sight of him, but there isn't any. When afternoon turns into twilight, I decide to wake Katniss. She stretches and gets out of the bag. "Any sign of our friend?"

"No, he's been keeping a disturbingly low profile."

"How long do you think we'll have before the gamemakers drive us together." Hopefully, awhile. I like when she asks my opinion on things. I've been following her lead for so long, and for good reason, but it's nice to know she relies on me, even if it's just a little bit.

"Well," I answer, "Foxface died almost a day ago. So there's been plenty of time for the audience to place bets and get bored. I guess it could happen at any moment."

"Yeah, I have a feeling today's the day. I wonder how they'll do it." I am silent. I don't know how, but I don't want to know, either. They always come up with some way, and it's never pretty. "Well, until they do, no sense in wasting a hunting day," she tells me. Then she suggests we eat as much as we can so that if we run into trouble, our strength is up.

We make our way to the stream which is completely dry. I'm surprised at the Gamemakers. Normally, they drive tributes together at the end by some violent or horrifying turn of events, not by depleting the water source. We'll have to return to the lake. I'm sure Cato is near there. Katniss checks the ponds to be sure, but yes, they are dry. To the lake we go. She asks me if we should go now, and I tell her we might as well while we have plenty of rest. Plus, if we don't go now, the gamemakers might just send in the horrifying circumstance to _make _us go now.

I'm scared out of my wits, but I try to act like it's no biggie for Katniss. She doesn't seem afraid, but I don't need to encourage it. I wrap my arms around her and kiss her cheek before telling her, "Two against one. Piece of cake." Yum. Cake. If we make it back, I'm going to spend all day making a cake in the bakery, then just eat the whole thing, all by myself. Katniss can have some if she wants. But the rest is mine. I also focus on how much better things will be if we get back. It helps keep the fear at bay. I won't ever have to eat anything stale for dinner. I can buy my mother jewelry for her birthday. I can get my dad the new ovens he so desperately wants. I'll be in a big house, living next to Katniss. Katniss- I'll have her still. I won't go back to the same Peeta I was before the games. No way.

"Next time we eat," she says, "It will be in the Capitol."

"You bet it will." I stop her then, and turn her around, facing me. We stand there for quite awhile, locked in a tight embrace. I rub my hand against her back, and whisper in her ear, "You're amazing, you know that? You've got this." She doesn't say anything, but I think it's just because her mind is otherwise occupied.

We walk until we're near the lake, then Katniss picks up some tree branches that will completely hide us from view, and we climb underneath. She told me this is where she hid when she was trying to blow up their food source. By this time, I'd already been lying in the riverbed. I, again, am amazed at her intelligence when she tells me she launched three arrows, each hitting a different spot on a bag of apples. The bag fell the way she wanted it to, and the falling apples disabled the mines. Foxface didn't think of that. She opens the branches and sees the sun sinking. We don't want to fight him after dark, she tells me. "There's only one pair of glasses." I squeeze some iodine to purify water while I answer her question. "Maybe that's what he's waiting for. What do you want to do? Go back to the cave?" I don't want to go back to the cave, I want to kill Cato and go home. "Either that or find a tree." No, not a tree. I hope he shows. "Let's give him another half hour or so." I nod. After we drink some water, we decide to go stand out in the open. By the lake, in front of the Cornucopia.

While I'm busy continuously wiping my nervous palms on my pants, Katniss seems to enjoy sitting here by the lake. The Mockingjays are active, singing. She has a very peaceful smile on her face. Then, I hear her sing, and my palms stop sweating. I'm no longer nervous or scared. For as long as she's singing, I'm taken away from here, from these games, from the Capitol. I turn my head to watch the beautiful four-tuned sound come out of her throat. The mockingjays stop to listen, and it's beautiful. And it's safe. And it's what I never want to stop hearing. "Just like your father." Katniss looks down. She touches the pin with her fingers and smiles. "That's Rue's song," She says, "I think they remember it." Of course they do.

Katniss closes her eyes for awhile and leans back, her hands behind her and propped up on the ground. She lets her head tilt back, and for awhile she just listens. I'm listening to. And I mimic her, I sit the same way and lean my head back to capture the tune. Then, they all stop. Immediately I open my eyes. Some start up again, but the tune is jagged, it's not the same. The Mockingjays all leave their tree branches and start flying everywhere, as if in a panic. And I know it's over. At least for now, the peace is gone.

I jump up first, wielding my knife. Then Katniss quickly joins me and pulls an arrow from her quiver. It sits on her bow ready for the kill. We both see his shadow coming fast, headed straight for us, and Katniss releases her arrow. It hits him in the heart, but bounces off. By now, he's close enough that when I squint, I see him wearing some kind of body armor, and I relay this information to Katniss. Cato has no weapon, but in his eyes are something fierce. Even though we both don't really know what's going on, we brace for impact as he pushes right through us, and then I realized he is running from something. I know I am going to hate to see what it is.

Huge dogs bound through the forest, eyes red and wide, and teeth showing and snarling. There are at least twenty of them. Katniss and I then take off and sprint to the point where I no longer feel in control of my legs to the Cornucopia, away from whatever the hell the gamemakers decided to unleash upon us. Katniss has reached the Cornucopia and is about to launch herself up onto it when she realizes I'm still pretty far behind her. I want to yell at her to forget me and just jump, but I don't have any breath left in me. One is about to snap my leg in half when Katniss shoots an arrow straight through it's head. I then notice is has a collar on when I see the arrow hit. The collar simply says "10" I don't know what it means. Maybe these animals came from District 10? That _is _livestock, though I'm not sure I'd think of these as livestock. These are monsters.

Katniss prepares another arrow but she doesn't have enough to kill all of the creatures and she needs to save some to kill Cato anyway. I reach the cornucopia just as Katniss is about to let an arrow fly through Cato's chest, I scream out because one is right on my heel and I curse myself when I break her focus. She yells at me to climb. She shoots one more down in order to clear them enough to pull me up when I get to her feet. When I'm up, the breathless, heaving Cato says something Katniss can't understand. "He wants to know if they can climb it?" Katniss looks back at the mutts. She prepares another arrow, not answering the question. She doesn't know. As she is waiting to observe their behavior, she shrieks. She is staring directly at a mutt's collar. This mutt has a number "1" on it's collar, but I don't see why she screamed. She shoots the arrow into the dog's throat and I notice she only has a few arrows left.

As I grab her arm, I ask her what's wrong. "It's her!" She screams. "Who?" She tells me it's the tributes with terror in her eyes. I gasp. "What did they do to them, do you think those are their real eyes?" This is not the question I should be asking right now. One jumps dangerously close, and Katniss shouts at me to kill it. Before I stab it with my knife, I notice the "4" on it. It has brown eyes. It's Kyra.

Other than Katniss, Kyra was really the only friend I had in here. Though she would have killed me had it come down to it, inside, she was just like me. Just wanting to go home but not wanting to kill anyone, and it pains me to watch my knife slide across her chest as she falls to the ground below. But I don't allow myself to focus on her too long, as there are plenty more of them after us. I notice Katniss pull an arrow and look towards Cato, but instead, she has to shoot it through the throat of the biggest mutt there is: Thresh. Just then, as she is pulling another arrow, I'm yanked to the side, and I feel Cato's arms around me.

I close my eyes. Cato has an arm around my throat. He will either break my neck or throw me to the wolves. Either way, this is it. I'll die here today. My only hope is that he's close enough for Katniss to shoot an arrow straight through his eye. But she won't shoot, not with me in front of him, and he knows this, explaining why he hasn't killed me yet. _Just shoot_, I'm thinking, and I glance at her pleadingly, but she doesn't budge. She has her arrow ready to go, and won't take her gaze off of me and Cato. Then I feel woozy. I thought it was Cato cutting off my air supply at first, until Katniss looks at my leg. A mutt has taken a chunk out of my leg. It's okay, though, the more air Cato prevents me from getting, the less it all hurts. And I'm actually just wanting him to kill me and get it over with. But then I come up with an idea.

If Katniss can get Cato off me, I can push him. I draw an X on his hand with my fingers, and immediately she gets it. She shoots, and Cato shouts as he goes over the Cornucopia, to the dogs, pulling me with him.

Katniss reaches me and grabs my hand at the last minute, pulling me up. So, Cato won't last long, and technically, it is safe to say that now, we are the victors. But I don't think the Capitol will let it happen that easy. No, they want us to watch as Cato is ripped to shreds, one piece at a time. That's how they are.

I'm desperately trying to keep from passing out, as I've lost a lot of blood. I am afraid that when I close my eyes, they won't open again. Strange to think that only a week and a half ago I was actually praying and waiting and hoping for the sweet release of death. Now, though, I'm not. Not with the life I can have so close to me. I just have to wait until Cato is gone, then the cannon will fire and the Capitol will heal us. Then, we can go home. Katniss seems to be thinking the same thing. She tells me "Don't go to sleep." I think she realizes how slim my chances are if I do.

I'm trying to keep my eyes open, so I watch Katniss. It's better than watching the dogs rip Cato's life from him, literally. She is sitting in the fetal position, hugging her knees, rocking back and forth. Her eyes are closed and she looks like she is in pain, but she is just traumatized. I long for us to finally go home and be safe back in District 12.

As more time goes by, I see her shiver. "Are you cold?" I have to admit I'm cold too. But at this point, I don't think I'll be needing a jacket anymore. I don't think I'm leaving the arena. I offer her my jacket. However, she just comes closer to me and we hold onto each other while sharing my jacket.

The next few hours are excruciating. The only sounds we hear are of the poor boy from District 2 crying, and begging for his suffering to end. He was the most Capitol raised ruthless killer in here, but still, he was just a kid wanting to go home. Katniss asks me then why don't they just kill him. And I know why. So does she. This is the end of the Hunger Games. Of course they have to see this. They sit in front of their televisions, gorging themselves on food they don't need, drinking liquor, and discussing the events of the games. It's sick.

I realize that I can no longer fight it. My eyes are getting heavier and my pulse getting weaker. And now, the chills have left me, and I know I am dying. Again. Each time I shut my eyes, though, Katniss screams my name, desperately shaking me and holding on to me. I do my best to stay with her, but this happens a few more times. Katniss is looking at the sky. Just anything to avoid watching the dogs. "Look at the moon, sweetheart." I tell her, nearly breathless. "What about it?" I'm sure she knows, hunter that she is, but she is trying to keep me from sleeping. "You can tell the time that's passed. It's three." She nods and looks back at the moon.

Katniss wakes me again and now the sun is beginning to rise. I'm more surprised that I'm awake than I was the first time I woke up on that riverbed, after I thought for sure I'd be dead. Still, it won't be long now. No way. Katniss is no doctor, but her mother is, and I'm sure Katniss paid enough attention to know what death looks like. She looks at me in way she hasn't before, with fear and dread, like she's afraid I'll leave her. I suggest she kill Cato, and the thought registers. She nods slowly as I unzip my jacket.

I see Katniss shoot the arrow, and the cannon fires. Finally, the pleading and the whimpering stops, and I can breathe easier knowing he's no longer in pain. Then it hits me that I am alive, Katniss is alive, and we won. Never ever in a million years did I expect this. Amidst the sadness and anger and pain, now, there's a little bit of joy and relief, knowing that I can finally go home, and take her with me. But nothing happens.

Katniss demands they tell her what's going on and I suggest maybe it's because the hovercraft hasn't removed the body yet. I am guessing we have to move away from it and Katniss suggests we get back to the lake. I think it's pure adrenaline and happiness and hope that keeps me going, as I half-walk half-crawl to the lake. Katniss helps me some of the way, but I'm much heavier than she is so there isn't much she can do. Against all odds, we sit by the lake and watch the hovercraft take Cato away from here.

Still, nothing happens, and I am deeply worried that maybe citizens have placed bets on how long I'll last before they end the games. One last way to make money, who cares that it's a kids life right? "What are they waiting for?" I ask Katniss. She tells me she doesn't know and finds a stick. I'm guessing she's going to do her best to make a tourniquet out of it. Then we hear the announcers voice and I feel the hope again.

Leave it to the Capitol to take all hope away. Of course they changed the rules back to only one winner. They just wanted to see a little bit of romance before tragically ripping one of us away from the other. Bastards. Heartless sons of bitches. Katniss is looking at me with disbelief. I think this is as mad as I've ever been at the Capitol. "If you think about it, it's not that surprising." I tell her. Because it isn't. I stand up and pull my knife. I close my eyes and think of everything I'll miss. Food, Water, walks in the rain, my family, my friends, her… I intend to kill myself, but I think Katniss thinks I have my knife drawn to kill her, so she loads an arrow and aims it to my heart. Well, this is the cherry on top of the best Hunger Games yet. It hurts me that she thinks I'd ever do _anything_ to hurt her. It hurts me more than all of the pain I've been in in this arena, put together. Then I throw the knife to the side and give her a look that communicates "How could you?" She looks ashamed, and lowers her arrow.

"No, do it." Quite frankly, I don't care anymore. When I die, I won't have the pain I feel in my leg or the heartache in my heart. But I try not to be upset with her, it isn't her fault she has trust issues, and she did see me pull the knife. I understand, but it still hurts. "I can't." She chokes out. "I won't!" I roll my eyes.

"Katniss, please. Just do it before they kill me some other way. I don't want to die like Cato." She shoves her bow at me. "Then you shoot me." The heartache I felt is gone. She is serious. She wants me to live? To do this, she must care about me a lot. "You shoot me and go home and live with it." Nevermind, it's back. She doesn't want me to live, she just doesn't want to go home and face District 12 knowing she killed me. Still, she must care about me a little bit, she's risked her life to save mine a few times. "You know I can't" I won't ever in a million years be capable of that. When she does nothing, it gets the best of me. "Fine, I'll go first anyway." I lean down and rip the bandage off and shout in agony at the pain.

Katniss screams "No, you can't kill yourself!" She desperately tries to close the wound and I bring her back up to her feet. "Katniss, it's what I want."

"You're not leaving me here alone," she says. "Listen, we both know they have to have a victor, so please, just take it, for me." She looks like she is thinking about something but I tell her how I feel anyway because I'm not sure how much time we have left. "I can't tell you how grateful I am to have had these four weeks with you, to get the chance to know you, hold you, kiss you…" She interrupts me and she whispers, "Trust me." I just look at her. I don't know what's going on. But I do. I do trust her.

She pulls the pouch of berries and empties some in her hand. She puts berries in my hand, and I see what she's doing. The Capitol needs a victor. So if they think we either both win or we'll kill ourselves, maybe they'll announce us both winners. But, what if they call her bluff? Then we'll both die. "On the count of three," she tells me. Well, I'm going anyway. At least if it happens this way, it'll be fast. I kiss her, one last time, possibly. "Count of three." I agree. "Hold them out," I tell her. "I want everyone to see." She does, and I hold mine out to let everyone, especially the Capitol, know of our intentions.

She squeezes my hand, and I count, "one. Two. Three." And at the count of three, I say my last goodbyes in my head as I put the berries in my mouth, as does she. I bite one at let the sweet succulent kiss of death coat my mouth. Then, Claudius' voice booms. "Stop! Stop!" He yells. "Ladies and Gentleman, I am pleased to present the victors of the Seventy-fourth Hunger Games, Katniss Everdeen, and Peeta Mellark, I give you- The tributes of District 12!" And we've done it. I've got a strange sense that this one action, this one thing with the berries has just set the course of both of our lives forever.


	13. The Victory

Immediately I spit all the juice from the deadly berries out of my mouth while Katniss does the same. I pull her to the lake, and both of us are so happy, that she just jump right in. We rinse our mouths out with the lake water and we ask each other if we swallowed any, but neither of us did. She smiles a big smile knowing that we figured out a way to beat the Capitol-it's never been done before.

She splashes me with water and I swear I've never seen her so happy- It looks like the years of heartache and pain and worry have completely been wiped clean with the promise of a new life for her. Her family won't ever starve again, and they have a big house now, and not a care in the world.

I realize how happy I am, too. I went into these Games without the slightest hope of leaving this arena. I'd already prepared myself mentally for never seeing my family again, but I can, I can see them again. And I dare Riley to mess with me now that I've made it out of here! Not only that, but Katniss is coming back with me, and she isn't a stranger that I would do anything to talk to anymore.

I'm just now hearing the cheers and applause of the Capitol that they are playing over the loud speakers. It makes it even more exciting. Never in the history of Panem has this been done before! The citizens are probably very happy with the outcome of the games, considering we were the doomed star crossed lovers everyone felt so sorry for!

The hovercraft that will take us away from this hell and into a new life shows up over our heads. There are two ladders, but we use only one. Katniss links arms with me and each of us have one foot on the rung of the ladder. We're holding onto each other tight, and I don't notice how woozy I feel until we reach the inside of the hovercraft. The last thing I remember is seeing the bright silver floor of the hovercraft an inch from my face.

The first thing I see when I open my eyes is a ridiculous looking bright pink wig. My eyes are taking awhile to adjust to the fluorescent lights above me, though. As soon as they come into focus, I see Effie-that explains the wig- rushing over to me. She puts her hand on my forehead. "You're alive!"

"Yeah?"  
>"Well, you know, we just weren't sure you'd come back…"<p>

"What do you mean?" I have a million questions, and I have a feeling that Effie isn't the best person to answer them. "Where's Katniss?" I admit that my first question should have been, "What the hell do you mean 'I'm alive?'" Effie smiles. "Oh, she's fine. You just worry about you right now."

"Where am I?"  
>"You're in the Capitol, in one of our best hospitals, can't you tell?" I look around and notice the neon colored tile on the floor. Of course. "How long have I been out?"<p>

"Three days. You passed out from loss of blood as soon as you got into the hovercraft. Your heart stopped twice and they had to revive you, even then, on breathing machines and feeding tubes, you were in a coma." I take a better look at myself.

My chest wounds are disgusting looking. They were disgusting before, but now that all the remaining venom has been drained, the skin didn't regain its elasticity. I have three green and purple wrinkly skin patches on my chest. My face, I notice in a mirror- Capitol hospitals have mirrors _everywhere_- looks like hell. I've got bruises everywhere, and the nightlock, despite my best attempts to rid it all, has caused lacerations in my tongue and cheeks, which are now swollen.

My arms are bruised as well, and I'm hooked up to, I count, eight different machines and bags of fluid. I have no idea which does what. But the worst thing is, my lower leg, the one that was cut, is gone, and has been replaced with an artificial. I am thankful that I am alive and I am going home, but my life won't be the same without the leg. I lost a part of me. This one will definitely take some getting used to.

In addition to all of my physical deformities, inside, I feel like shit too. I've got a throbbing headache, and my back feels like tracker jackers stung me everywhere. I'm extremely nauseous and feel like throwing up, but there isn't anything to throw up. My lower leg is in pain, despite the morphling drip, and so is my mouth.

About an hour after I wake up, Effie excuses herself, for what I don't know. The Avox girl comes in with a tray holding water, a bowl of broth, and more pills than I can count, as well as packets of salt, and a flask of something. "What's all this?" I say. She pushes the tray towards me and gives me a head nod telling me to take it. "I don't feel well, do I have to take it now?"

I hear someone say "yes." And I look around. The nurse just came in, and is putting some gloves on. She pulls up a stool and sits by me."Good afternoon, Peeta. I'm Sira, your nurse." I just nod my head. I want to go to sleep. "You've got to take these pills to get well, but you can't take them without food and water, so I brought you whatever I thought you'd be able to keep down."

"What is the salt and the flask for?"

"The combination of the dark liquor in the flask and salt will kill the bacteria in your mouth from the nightlock berries."

Sira rips open a packet of salt and pours it in the flask, and tells me to drink it. I close my mouth tight and shake my head. "There's no way I'll be able to keep that down."

"It will help with the pain Peeta." I consider it, but the thought of consuming anything at all makes me sicker than I am now. I turn away from her and look out the window, but I don't have a view. Still, I stare at the neon brick wall outside my hospital room window until she sighs and leaves. "Tomorrow," she says, "you won't have an option, Peeta."

I hope tomorrow is better than today is. I'm still so weak that it's no trouble to fall asleep. I take a couple of deep breaths and try my best not to focus on the excruciating pain that I'm in. Instead, I think of home.

The first thing I dream about is a bakery. It's a nice bakery, it's one that I own myself, I've converted my house in the Victor's Village into it, but I'm not really sure where I live now. All the familiar faces at the Hob I see in my dream, all of them have enough money to buy my bread. They all look great. Even the poorest citizens all look very happy and well fed. No one is miserable and everyone has a smile on their face, and everyone greets everyone else in a friendly manner.

Even my mother is different in the dream. In the dream, I see my mother hugging my father and telling him she loves him, something I've never seen in real life. She hugs me too, and tells me that she is proud of me and how happy she is that I am home. Riley gives me a punch on the shoulder playfully. "I guess you'll be the one calling the shots around here, huh kid?" Jacob, for the first time ever, wears a smile on his face. He's never been sad, per say, but never really happy either. I'm not sure what it is about Jacob, he seems to pretty much live in his own world for the most part. But not here. Not in this dream. In this dream, he's as friendly and chatty as everyone else standing around in my bakery.

Haymitch comes in next, and he looks like a completely different person. He's clean shaven, wears clean clothes, he has his hair washed and slicked back, and he's _sober._ He walks over to me and gives me a pat on the back before looking towards the door, where Katniss and Gale walk in. Katniss and Gale are hand-in-hand, but when she sees me, she jumps into my arms. Gale doesn't look upset, he's smiling.

I wake up and realize that it's just a dream. I can only hope for such happiness and peace when I get home, but I'm no fool. Haymitch will probably never be sober, and Jacob won't ever wear any emotion. My mother, well, she won't say much. And just because Katniss and I won doesn't mean the happiness and nutrition of every citizen. We can't feed the whole of District 12 with our winnings, though I do plan to help as much as I can.

When Effie walks in, she tells me that I've been out another two days. "It's the morphling drip, it's made to relax your muscles so much that you're in sleep mode for awhile. The doctor is going to take it out tomorrow, though."

"When is the Capitol celebration thingy?" I ask her.

"In two days. And until then, we've got to make sure you're as handsome as possible, don't we?" I just look at her. She clears her throat. "So! Take your pills, okay?" Effie happily trots out of the room and informs the nurse that I'm awake.

I do feel better today, the nausea is there but not as much. The throbbing headache has turned into minor discomfort. The lacerations in my mouth have scabbed over, which is disgusting and feels weird, but at least it means they're healing. I realize they must have been medicating me in my sleep. "Will you take your medicine voluntarily today?" Sira asks me. I nod. I swallow the pills with one glass of water, then work on the broth. After an hour, I've managed to get down half the bowl, then I push it away because I can't hold anymore.

I don't mind the next visitor at all. "How are you doing, Peeta?"

"Hey, Portia."

"Well," she says, looking me over. "You don't look as bad as I thought you would." She walks over to me and messes with my hair and face. "Yes, we can work with this." She says, smiling. She sits down a chair and pulls it next to my bed. "How's that morphling working out for you?" She says, trying not to laugh. Morphling is a heavily addicting drug. "Guess I won't know till I'm off it, huh?" She laughs.

I spend the next hour or so talking to Portia and my other stylists, but then my eyes become heavy and I drift back off to sleep.

In this dream, I don't know how to feel. Katniss and I are at the celebration ceremony, in the Capitol. It's being recorded on live television throughout Panem, of course. President Snow is congratulating us. Then, he stands off to the side while Caesar interviews us. Halfway through my interview, though, I hear the crowd go from laughter to a sudden silence, then cries of terror. I look to Katniss, and she's somehow retrieved a bow and arrow from somewhere. She's got it loaded, and it's aimed at President Snow's heart. "No!" I yell, "Stop!" She looks at me, but shows no emotion, then she looks back at Snow and releases the bow, killing him instantly. Then, I see her smile.

I wake up sweating. Snow is a horrible, horrible man, and an even worse President. But in the dream I was afraid. I don't know why. Something felt eerily real in the dream, like it actually happened, but there's no way that it did. Something feels off, but I can't quite put my finger on it.

I take more pills today. Then, the morphling is taken out of me. Luckily, I don't have bad withdrawal symptoms. The doctor said the tolerance and dependence really just depends on the person. Since I'm tall and strong, it must not have affected me as much. "When can I see Katniss?" I ask Effie when she comes in. "They want the reunion to be live on tv." Well, yeah, I guess that makes sense.

I spend the rest of the day in physical therapy. For an hour at a time, I practice walking using my artificial leg. When an hour goes by, I get tired and they allow me to rest for an hour, then we start up again.

By nighttime, I'm walking well enough to be able to get through the awards ceremony, but not much else. Well, it's not like I plan to run a marathon anyway. I'll have much more time to get completely back to normal, or, at least, a new normal, back at home.

Before I sleep, I'm given my last dose of pills. By now, my face has returned to almost normal looking, but Portia said any other blemishes she can cover easily. The skin on my chest has been operated on and now looks close to normal, you can only see a few scars where they cut the dead skin off.

Sleep comes easily, and when I wake up in the morning, I'm taken to the remake center, where Portia will do her best to make sure I look like I haven't just been to hell and back. Cinna will be doing the same thing with Katniss.

The stylists use all kinds of oils and botanicals on my hair to make it soft and shiny again, though I don't see the point in that. It's not like President Snow is going to be running his fingers through my hair. Though, I don't bring this up to Portia. She files my nails on my fingers and toes, and paints them with a clear coat so they look less damaged. My face is waxed, which hurts, _a lot_, and I remember how much it hurt when they did that the first time, a short three weeks ago.

Portia uses concealer to hide the blemishes, and then I'm told to dress. I'm wearing a suit similar to the one I wore at the last interview, and then Portia, my stylists, and I, are guided down to below the stage, where we'll rise up through the floor onto the stage in front of the audience.

Music is playing, and the stylists go up first, each one standing on a metal plate that looks exactly like the ones that took us into the arena. Portia gives me a hug, but she looks a little worried, and I decide that maybe she is just worried I'll stumble, because she hands me a cane after that to help me stand, I'll have to be standing for awhile. I thank her before she rises, and I think I see the worry return.

Ten feet to my right, there's a makeshift wall, and I can guess who is behind it. I stand on my plate, then I hear the boom over the speakers, followed by more music, and the thundering applause of the Capitol audience.

Katniss and I come onto the stage at the same time, and we both steal glances at each other. The camera catches this. Our eyes turn from each other to the television screens, and in the screen, we make eye contact again. She looks stunning, totally different from the arena. Only I worry she's lost too much weight again. The good thing, is that now that she is a victor, she'll gain some weight back.

I smile at her, but she quickly turns her glance away from me and to President Snow, and I'm wondering if the look on her face as she watches President snow wave to the audience has something to do with my dream. I don't have time to dwell on it, though, as she is in my arms in the next three seconds. She's kissing me intensely, but it doesn't feel right, and I'm not sure why. For one, she isn't the type to do something personal in public. This kiss, it's nice, but it seems routine, not spontaneous, and I don't know why.

Haymitch pushes me, and I shoot him a look, then he directs us over to the victor's couch. There's plenty of space for both of us, but Katniss sits so close to me that we could probably fit two more people on this couch made for two. As if that wasn't weird enough, then she kicks off her shoes and leans her head on my shoulders. Instinctively, I put my arm around her and hold her close.

Something definitely seems off. Katniss isn't one to act like this, especially in public. I'm not complaining, no way, but it does seem odd. Then I tell myself to stop being paranoid. The only reason she was so fiercely independent before was because she had to be. Now that she has her winnings, she'll never have to put love and family and friendship second to survival.

We have to watch the entire Hunger Games replay on the television, which is hard to do without shouting obscenities at the President sitting only a few yards away from us. Katniss, if she didn't figure it all out before, now knows exactly why I did all the things I did- to keep her alive. There is one thing I didn't even know I did though, and that's whisper her name in my sleep when I was dying on the riverbed. We got a lot of "ooohs" and "awwws" when this happened, and Katniss put her hand behind my head and kissed me.

I felt so proud of her for what she did when Rue died. Staying with her that way, and singing to her. That must have been where the Mockingjay I heard sing picked it up. Because, for the first half of the song, while Rue was still alive, the tone was normal. After Rue took her last breath, the tune sounded pained.

Then the audience goes silent as the moment with the berries arrives. I am wondering just how much they'll show of it. I know the Capitol officials aren't very happy about it. So they probably won't show much. Instead of announcing our victory, the video skips over to the hovercraft and I watch myself pass out. Katniss is then shut behind a glass door, frantically trying to reach me. I see myself flatline twice, and I have to admit, I have chills.

The Capitol anthem plays as the president breaks the crown into halves and places one half on my head and one on hers. Then for the next five minutes or so, all we do is wave, and smile, and let the press take our pictures, until finally Caesar Flickerman bids everyone good night and tells them to tune in for the final interviews tomorrow.


	14. The Homecoming

**Here we are: The Final Chapter **

Before us, is an extremely exorbitant amount of food. It's like nothing I've ever seen before. We're in a huge ballroom, and there are so many different tables of food, all for us. There's a buffet with nothing but seafood that I can't seem to get enough of, and Katniss is eating fruit like there's no tomorrow. And these aren't just your average, gathered fruits. They have fruits shipped in from not only all over Panem, but from different countries. There is one fruit in particular that we both seem to enjoy, it's called Passion Fruit.

After our stylists and Haymitch and we eat our fill, it's time to smile and pose, and hug and kiss for the cameras. Magazines and Newspapers will have cover stories of us, and of our triumph. By the time the night is over, I see purple dots everywhere that I think won't ever go away from the amount of camera flashes.

Katniss doesn't let go of my hand, and President Snow must be enjoying this because… he doesn't stop looking at us. It is making me a little uncomfortable just how fixated he is on us to be completely honest. The sky outside is turning orange, and I know the sun will set soon.

By the time the sun is the lowest on the horizon, the sky turns a pretty shade of pink, and we make our way to the elevator of the training center, just one last time. I'm a nervous wreck, I haven't had the chance to talk to Katniss since we left the arena, and I want to ask her if she is okay and if tell her about my leg.

I don't get the chance. "Peeta, go with Portia to get fitted for an interview."

"Can I just…"

"No. Do I have to personally escort you?"

"No," and I curse him under my breath, but I follow Portia and Haymitch walks Katniss to her room. Maybe she'll meet me on the roof later?

I get into the "pants that need fitting", but really all Portia does is just make sure they fit, which they do, so I'm wondering what Haymitch's problem is. Maybe he doesn't want us distracted before the interview, though, I don't see what the big deal is. We've already won the Games.

Immediately after Portia leaves, I slip up to the roof. But she isn't there. I decide maybe Haymitch is talking to her, or maybe she is enjoying that shower with all the fancy buttons like I can't wait to do when I get back to my room. I wait around for two hours, but then I decide she isn't coming.

I go to knock on her door, but Haymitch catches me as I'm walking past his room on my way to hers. "Hey boy, care for a drink?" I shake my head no. "Aw, don't be a ninny, get in here and toast with me." Well, how exactly am I supposed to get out of this? I can't just say I'm going to Katniss' room for several reasons, and I've already passed my room. So I just join Haymitch.

I decide to have a drink, it's not like I'm going to let myself wind up like Haymitch.  
>"So, where were <em>you<em> going so late at night?"

"I was feeling confined, I just wanted a walk." Haymitch takes a swig from his flask, and I then passes it to me and I do the same. "Sure you were. If that was a walk, what were you on the roof for?"

"Fresh air." Haymitch smiles slyly. "She's sleeping. I told her she needs as much sleep as she can get for tomorrow, so don't take it personally." I play dumb.

"Take what personally?"

"Take her not meeting you up on the roof like you guys did before personally." I take another drink, and then have to listen to Haymitch blabber on about something or another, and I can tell he's trying to keep me here as long as possible so I don't go talk to Katniss.

His plan works, because by the time he passes out on the ground, it's very late, and I am exhausted. My body still isn't completely recovered, so I really do need a lot of sleep as well. I've waited this long to talk to her, I suppose there's no harm in waiting until the train ride home, so I go back to my room and pass out on my bed.

I thought the interviews were going to be like they were before the Games, but really it's more like a private interview. Effie takes us both down to a sitting room in the Training Center, where the couch from last night has been moved and is in the center of the room, surrounded by roses. There are maybe six or seven cameras, and fourteen crew members in the room, plus Caesar, but that's it.

Immediately, Caesar gives Katniss a hug and gives his congratulations to her. She is making small chit chat with him but keeps eyeing me, and when Caesar finally flints off to talk to a cameraman, I pull her to the side. "I hardly get to see you. Haymitch seems bent on keeping us apart."

"Yes, he's gotten very responsible lately." Somehow I don't think that's what it is, but I just ignore it. "Well, there's just this and we go home. Then he can't watch us all the time." This is definitely true. We'll actually have to be the ones keeping a watchful eye on him now.

We take our places on the couch, this time, she sits kind of far away from me, but then Caesar tells her not to be shy in his own little way, and she scoots closer to me and I wrap my arm around her so that we're sitting like we were last night. Then I hear, "Three. Two. One. Action."

"Well, Peeta, congratulations first of all on that big win! I bet you didn't see that coming." I play along like I normally do. "I sure didn't, Caesar. That win probably threw me off more than it did you."

"So tell me, whose idea was it? The berries, I mean?"

"It's all her. She's always been intelligent, that way." For some reason, when I say this, Katniss winces, and Haymitch is staring at me funny. "I love this guy!" Caesar says. "I tell you, Katniss, don't ever let this one go!" She just gives a half-smile and nods.

"Well, Peeta, we know, from our days in the cave, that it was love at first sight for you at what? Age five?"

"From the moment I laid eyes on her." Even though there is no audience, I can still practically hear their reaction. He looks at Katniss now.

"But Katniss, what a ride for you. I think the real excitement for the audience was watching you fall for him. When did you realize you were in love with him?" I am so very thankful to Caesar for asking this question, because I am dying to know.

"Oh, that's a hard one…" She gives a nervous laugh and looks down, and it's clear she doesn't know what to say. I'm sure if we were alone she would, but the cameras are intimidating, to say the least. Caesar goes on.

"Well, I know when it hit me. The night when you shouted out his name from that tree." Her face lightens up, and I can tell a light bulb goes off. "Yes. I guess that was it. I mean, until that point, I just tried not to think about what my feelings might be, honestly, because it was so confusing and it only made things worse if I actually cared about him. But then, in the tree, everything changed."

"Why do you think that was?"

"Maybe… because for the first time… there was a chance I could keep him." I can still hear the audience's reaction. Of course Haymitch ruins the moment by making some weird sound. It sounds like he choked on his liquor. I try to steal the moment back, and I press my forehead to hers. "So, now that you've got me, what are you going to do with me?"

"Put you somewhere you can't get hurt." This normally would bother me, since _I'm_ the one that wanted to protect _her_ from the start, but I actually was the one getting hurt the most. I kiss her and the people in the room love it.

Caesar asks about my leg, the artificial one, and I figure out that Katniss doesn't know about it yet, and for a moment, I feel guilty for not telling her. But then, I never really had a chance to. Of course she immediately blames herself for it, because of the tourniquet, but then I tell her if it wasn't for her quick thinking I'd have bled to death, which seems to ease her a little bit.

Still, she buries her face in my shirt. It's a little too quiet, now, I guess, because Caesar brings up the berries again. "Katniss, I know you've had a shock, but I've got to ask, the moment you pulled out those berries, what was going through your mind?"

"I don't know, I just…couldn't bear the thought of…being without him."

Well, it goes without saying, I'm on cloud 9 right now. "Peeta, anything to add?"

"No, I think that goes for the both of us." After this, Caesar says his goodbyes to the cameras, and they shut off. Haymitch pulls Katniss to the side, and Caesar pats me on the back. "It's been a pleasure, Peeta."

"You too Caesar."

Time flies for the next few hours. First, I'm escorted by Effie back to my room to get the rest of my things, and I say goodbye to Portia, who is standing by the car ready to take us back to the train station, on our way home.

On the train, the farther we get from the Capitol, the weirder everyone becomes. Haymitch is reveling in his successes, and is actually drinking a bit less. Effie is on edge, because she doesn't feel very comfortable in District 12 when she is so used to the luxury of the Capitol. And Katniss, well, as time goes on, she becomes more and more like the stranger I knew than the girl who kissed me in the arena. I have to wonder why, but she is probably just distracted, thinking of home.

When the train stops for fuel, I lead Katniss by the hand outside to have a few moments alone since we haven't had a chance to talk really. We walk hand in hand down the track, and she is distracted, though I don't know what by. I pick up some wildflowers and hand them to her and it seems to bring her back to me, because when she sees them, she smiles. But she doesn't say anything, and her smile fades quickly. "What's wrong?"

"Nothing" she answers a little too quick, so naturally, it isn't nothing. Haymitch is the one to actually clue me in to what's going on. He tells us to "keep it up" in the District, and "we should be okay." I have to wonder what the hell that means, and it's clear Katniss knows what he is getting at. When he leaves, I direct my attention to her.

"What's he mean?"

"It's the Capitol. They didn't like our stunt with the berries." Oh, so there it is. This is what's been bothering her from the celebration. But why wasn't I informed of this? Did Haymitch think I couldn't handle it? Did Katniss not trust me?

"It seemed too rebellious. So, Haymitch has been coaching me through the last few days. So I didn't make it worse." So that's why he's been keeping us apart. That's why she's been extra loving, and that's why her kiss on stage that night felt forced and different. Because it was.

"Coaching you? But not me?"

"He knew you were smart enough to get it right?"

"I didn't know there was anything to get right?" What is she getting at? Was everything she said, the way she acted, was it all a big façade?

"So, what you're saying is, these last few days and then I guess….back in the arena….that was just some strategy you two worked out?" It's hard for me to ask the question, but even harder to hear the answer.  
>"No. I mean, I couldn't even talk to him the arena right?"<p>

"But you know what he wanted you to do, didn't you?" Her silence confirms my worst fears.

"Katniss?" I let go of her hand at this point. I don't know what bothers me more, the fact that she and Haymitch played with my emotions, or the fact that she lied to my face, more than once. "It was all for the Games," I realize. "How you acted."

"Not all of it."

"Then how much? No, forget that. I guess the real question is, what's going to be left when we get home?"

I can handle my mother's scorn. I can handle stale bread. I can handle being reaped. I can handle nearly dying, several times. But what she says next, I cannot handle. "I don't know. The closer we get to District 12 the more confused I get." I am waiting, waiting for her to say anything, anything at all that will make this hurt less, even just a little less. But, nothing comes.

"Well, let me know when you work it out." I say, and I try not to let myself feel vulnerable, because that is what got me into this position in the first place. I'm walking back to the train now, and my shattered heart causes me pain in my chest, and it's unlike any pain I've felt before, much worse than anything else I've experienced.

Partially, I blame myself for not assuming that it was an act. Had I not been careful to watch for that? I've watched my mother put on acts all her life, and I always knows when she is faking. But, even though Katniss is a horrible liar, did I really not see through the lie?

I feel like I've been made a fool of on national television. The poor lovesick boy and the girl who just wanted to do anything to go home. And they planned the whole thing out, behind my back. Well, it won't happen again. I'll see to it.

I go straight to my room. Haymitch tries to ask me what is going on, but I slam the door in his face, which I'm sure, shocks him. Being too nice is what got me into this situation in the first place. And, to keep the three of us all safe from the Capitol, I'm going to have to hold her hand and kiss her and hug her for the cameras. Knowing that it's all fake, knowing that I can't have it.

The next morning, I grab her hand at the train station before the doors open, but this time, I grasp it lightly. I use all my focus to keep my expression cold and lifeless. With absolutely no emotion in my voice, I tell her, "Just one more time. For the cameras?" And then I swallow hard, and come to terms with the fact that nothing new waits for me in District 12. Katniss and Gale will go and hunt together. Haymitch will get drunk all the time. And I will bake bread. And it will be like nothing ever happened.

**Thank you all for sticking with me throughout this whole thing. I know a few of those thick, long paragraphs must have been _brutal_ to get through. It took me a lot of time but I finished it faster than all my other fanfics, and I haven't ever enjoyed writing something as much as I enjoyed writing this. **

**Update: March 20, 2012. Want more? I started Catching Fire. Check my profile for the link.**


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